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Writing Structure - Building an Anthology Outline Hi more experienced writers than I, I have been struggling to figure out how to outline a story (script) I am writing to put all my ideas together. I would like to make an Anthology where it starts off with my main character placing the setting, and then over the course of the story adding in other characters which support and explain the main character's journey to ultimately the end. Connecting and weaving all the plot points together to make sense at the end. I also would like to have the characters introduced have their own smaller arcs to give depth to my story but my ultimate question is how do I outline this in a way that makes sense and is easy to reference to while writing. Thanks for any resources offered or ideas shared. <Q> Scrivener is good for constructing large stories with many moving parts. <S> It is designed to go from research to final draft, with preset templates for scripts and novels. <S> I use the "folder and sub-text" hierarchy to organize very large timelines. <S> Each text file within the project can be re-arranged by dragging, and split at a point in the text. <S> There's an index card view that can show a summary, and other views where you add notes outside the main body of text. <S> Contiguous text files can be read as one document. <S> It's flexible to view while everything is still under construction. <S> It tends to be self-organizing as you arrange the hierarchy to suit the way you are thinking about it. <S> Random notes become an outline, outline is split into chapters, which divide into scenes. <S> A stray scene can be placed somewhere near where it belongs and eventually get massaged into place. <S> When an idea strikes it's easy to stick a quick note into the project where it belongs, so I'm able to catch and organize more ideas. <S> It's something like a Rolodex, and a content management system, and a word-processor. <S> It has a very utilitarian look which put me off at first, but now I am able to plot (infinitely) larger projects. <A> Complexity Overwhelms <S> the Brain Complexity is not a great starting point. <S> Yet, the brain often sees the gestalt of everything together and then overwhelms the writer so that he cannot even begin. <S> It's quite a challenge. <S> But the almost impossibility of complexity is also pointed stick that is telling us to go in another direction. <S> Focus <S> On The Simplest Element <S> You Can <S> However, if you try to do it all at once you'll probably get something similar to what you might get if you just threw it all in a bucket and mixed it up. <S> But, of course, you are thinking, " <S> But how do I break it into components?" <S> How Do You Break It Into Components? <S> Here are some guidelines: <S> Sit quietly and imagine all your POV Characters and list them. <S> List the major conflict that each character will experience. <S> Conflict, More Conflict, With Conflict Sauce <S> On Top Are your characters in opposition to each other? <S> Hopefully this is where the weaving begins. <S> This will create specific conflicts and conflict is what the stories are all about. <S> If you find that your characters are not in conflict with anything then you do not have a story for that particular character. <S> Write <S> In Scenes <S> Now, take one character at a time and write one scene. <S> Write a scene where : The character wants a specific goal. <S> The character is opposed by someone or something <S> that will not allowher to get the goal. <S> By the end of the scene the reader must know what the character wantsand believe that the character must have it. <S> To create more conflict --- insure that by the time the scene endsthe character is further from his goal than when he started out. <S> Write tough stuff. <S> Get your character into the jelly and so stuck <S> you wonder how you'll write him out. <S> Don't be afraid, you'll figure it out and it'll make great reading. <S> Begin seeing that the various characters want things that will opposeeach other over the longer story. <S> Get those subplots going. <S> Makesure you communicate that directly to your reader. <S> Bob wants theMcGuffin!! <S> He must have it. <S> But so does Sarah. <S> She will fight forit!! <A> I find that time is the most important organising metric for me to keep track of events, characters, technology, artifacts, and/or organisations. <S> I always end up needing a timeline, not necessarily to start with but as an organisational tool once there is either a single long duration narrative or a few separate stories over a long time in the same setting I find one absolutely essential. <S> This doesn't necessarily need dates on it or even defined time gaps between events but it keeps things in the right order.

If you'll break each item into it's own component you'll find that you will be able to manage the story and then weave it together. List what each character wants.

How do you construct a thesis statement? I have read any essay making tips and they said that the thesis statement is key to the thesis. So I tried to make one based on a question. So assume question like this: Overpopulation of urban areas has led to numerous problems.Identify one or two serious ones and suggest ways that governments and individuals can tackle these problems. And I create a thesis statement based on that question: In this essay, I will arguing that overpopulation may cause prevalent famine and increasing numbers of unemployment. Is this thesis statement correct? I feel that I should include my solution in the thesis statement, but it will make the statement become too long. What should I do? <Q> I am pretty sure this isn't a proper question for this site, but I will answer. <S> First, it's "I will argue" and not "I will arguing." <S> Second, it's "cause unemployment" or "cause increasing numbers of unemployed workers" or "lead to a higher rate of unemployment." <S> But that's just grammar <S> (I assume English is not your first language as these are things a native speaker wouldn't get wrong, especially not the first one). <S> Make your thesis statement stand on its own. <S> Don't tell the reader it's a thesis statement. <S> So no "In this essay" or "I will argue. <S> " <S> Just tell us what overpopulation does to urban areas. <S> Then prove it. <A> Your thesis statement should express the main idea of your paper. <S> So if you're discussing problems and solutions, the thesis statement should include both the problems and the solutions. <S> You've got that part down in your example: not "overpopulation may cause problems", but "overpopulation may cause famine and unemployment". <S> As @Cyn points out, "I will argue" is unnecessary - let the thesis statement stand on its own. <S> So, to use your example, your thesis statement could be along the lines of Famine and unemployment caused by overpopulation <S> may be prevented through government policies A, B, C. <S> For more information, look here , for example: the University of Illinois explanation about how to write a thesis statement. <S> (Of the first five google results for 'thesis statement', I found this one the most comprehensive.) <A> Pointing to some solution seems to be a key element in the thesis. <S> So you should at least say you will be providing one. <S> That will be short. <S> Probably you may even include a key element of the solution. <S> As is, "I will show that it may be mitigated {by doing so and so}"

The thesis statement should be specific .

Having Trouble Writing An Opening Scene With A Shy Character I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with the opening scene for a fantasy story I'm writing, about a mousy but passionate girl from a family of entertainers who inherits the entertainer's blood. She is bold, daring, and inspiring when lost in her performances or in battle, but in any social situation she becomes shy and nervous, prone to embarrassing herself and highlighting her failures for often ridiculous reasons. She feels inadequate despite how talented she is at pretty much everything she does (that does not involve her social skills or highlight how naive she is due to her young age). Due to her insecurities of feeling like she is not a talented performer she questions whether or not entertainment is the best path for her. She idolizes her family members. Her father was able to use his skills as an entertainer and apply them to combat situations, becoming an extremely unpredictable fighter that became famous for his combat achievements, not his entertainment feats. Her mother did the reverse. Her older brother had no interest in utilizing his performing talents and became known as one of the strongest knights in the army. She desperately searches to find her place in the world just as her family members have all found theirs. <Q> She is likely to have considerable internal dialogue, perhaps between her doubts and her beliefs. <S> She might be sitting in a corner while the social world swirls around her, immersed in her thoughts. <S> I have a character who, while not shy, periodically becomes very introspective and withdraws from those around him to focus on the issue at hand. <S> Your character could be trying to get her courage to take the stage, recalling her recent triumphs, but reminded that history need not repeat itself and this could be a disaster. <S> You could have her thoughts skitter in several directions, doing battle with her fears. <S> Perhaps she will have the courage to perform, perhaps not - but she always does. <S> How would she react if an impresario offered her a place in their troupe? <A> Put her alone. <S> Generally you want to open a story on the MC normal, status-quo world. <S> Give her an every day problem to solve, it doesn't matter too much what it is. <S> A power failure makes her late for school/work. <S> Then your reader gets some insight into who she is, what she is good at, what she is not good at, how she thinks. <S> In the next scene she can meet a stranger, and then you can show her shyness. <S> Show her strength first, so people will like her as an MC, then show her weakness, a flaw that will endear them. <S> All of that in the first 10% of the story, btw. <A> Well, from what I can see, shy characters are more introspective, meaning they reflect inner emotions more than expressing themselves. <S> This means heavy descriptions and less dialogue. <S> Instead of having the character interact with other characters, have her observe from afar until you think she is able to tackle a social convention herself. <S> Or, you could force her into situations by having more outspoken characters approach her. <S> But whatever you do, be sure to describe the character's thoughts and emotions. <S> She has a tough time with social interactions, so if she's forced into one, have her be bashful, and don't give her a lot of speaking lines. <S> Let her observations do the talking. <S> Hope this helps, and isn't just me rambling! <A> If your premise is that she's really good at certain things and awful at others, your opening scene should show both. <S> Without explaining it! <S> Just show. <S> I'd open with a scene of her at her best. <S> Then weave in some of the places where she struggles.

People are shy of other people, if she is alone she has nothing to be shy about. Put her in situations that make her uncomfortable and go from there. After this introduction of your character, then you can get to the "inciting incident", whatever happens to her that really is a plot point, whatever problem or mission she must complete, which is what will drive her on her journey to find herself. Or in your case, since she is good on stage, have something go wrong there; a prop fails or whatever, but she doesn't break character and completes the scene. Whatever your setting, something unexpected goes wrong for her, when she is alone, and she has to solve it on her own, with nobody else around.

Hint to murder in a dramatic monologue? I am making a dramatic monologue for a school project in this my character has committed a murder and during talking to his brother lets it slip but in a no direct way (straight up saying I killed him), how would I hint to it so that the reader would have to "read between the lines" to find out? Thanks <Q> If your character is an adult, particularly if he or she is given to wordplay, just try for subtlety. <S> I have one character apologizing to another for allowing his suspicions to govern his actions, rather than his love. <S> He hired an assassin but never admits it. <S> If your character has a mathematical turn, he subtracted something recently. <S> If your character is younger, maybe you were ‘the only one not surprised when X cut class’. <S> Perhaps refer to the deceased character as ‘auditing comparative religion ‘. <S> There are so many ways to say that without being blunt. <S> Have fun with it and see which scenario or euphemism suits the character best. <A> I am not experienced with 'Dramatic Monolouges', but this question is similar to many others where the writer doesn't want to give "an obvious answer/fact" to the reader. <S> @Rasadashan gives some good suggestions, and I aggree with them, but without the story these suggestions will probabbly be hard to use/follow. <S> In all cases, I believe it depends on the story, the characters and the events that have taken place. <S> What your "character" includes in the monologue will or should be a reflection of the personality of the character and his/her connection to the other characters and the events that have taken place. <S> Creating the 'puzzle' for your readers to solve, should be based on what you'd like them to work on and what you feel confortable creating. <S> What kind of puzzle would you enjoy having to solve if you were reading/listening to the monologue? <A> This is awkward, subtlety is a really subjective quality. <S> For example Rasdashan's line about "auditing comparative religion" has immediate and obvious meaning to me, (in the given context at least), but I know I'll have to explain it to my wife, <S> and I'd have to explain the very concept of comparative religion to my best friend before I could explain the phrase as a whole. <S> In short there is no "one size fits all" approach that gives one audience member a clue without screaming "I killed a man" to another and leaving yet another mystified. <A> The obvious hints are support for any potential murderer, and the "If I had done it ..." comments. <S> "If we're lucky, somebody killed him, and we owe them a party. <S> Maybe I'll throw it!" <S> "If I did it, they'd never find the body. <S> I know just what I'd do." <S> "I hope he's dead. <S> I know how I'd do it, and I'd get away with it, too. <S> People underestimate me."

You could have it alluded to as a solution to a problem. I think the "his death is not a great surprise" angle would probably work best, it doesn't necessarily say "I killed him" but it does say "of course someone killed him".

How to avoid mentioning the name of a character? I am writing a short story which features a character known only as Old Man, but there is a part of the story where someone calls the Old Man by his name. Only once, and I was wondering if there was a way to have it so that the name is said but not mentioned in the story. My story is written from the third person. <Q> Sure, take the example of the Library story arc in Doctor <S> Who , we see River Song tell the Doctor his name by way of convincing him <S> she's trustworthy <S> but we don't hear it. <S> The audience only know what she told him because she says she's going to tell him and only know it's the right name because of the Doctor's reaction to it. <S> The same is possible in written fiction as well: <S> X leaned over and whispered into the Old Man's ear. <S> The colour drained from his weatherbeaten features, then he found his voice. " <S> But how do you know that name?" he sputtered. <S> Or something similar, the key is to show the information being used without actually saying what that information is. <A> Then show Old Man's reaction. <S> Example: <S> "Nothing gives you the right to do this." <S> Old Man sat back down in his chair, hoping Taylor would take the hint and go. <S> Instead, he bent over so close Old Man smelled beer and onions on his breath. <S> Then Taylor whispered something Old Man had last heard from his wife's dying lips. <S> Too many years to count. <S> "How?... <S> " Old Man asked him. <S> Taylor stood. <S> "I know more than you think. <S> More than just your name, Old Man." <S> And so on... <A> or something like that. <A> You can say e.g. "upon hearing his name, he turned..." <A> Note : <S> This answers a slightly looser requirement that " the real name is not mentioned in the story". <S> This isn't precisely what the OP asked, and may not work for them, but may suit others in a broadly similar situation. <S> You could perhaps adopt/adapt the technique used in the spy novel <S> The Ipcress File by Len Deighton. <S> Although the film of the book gave the main character a name ( Harry Palmer ), Deighton did not. <S> At one point in the book he has another character refer to the protagonist by name (while in an airport bookshop): <S> I was killing a minute with the paperbacks when I heard a soft voice say, 'Hello, Harry.' <S> Now my name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been. <S> and "Harry" shrugs it off as a previously-used false name. <S> That works well for a cloak-and-dagger spy story, but there are variants you could use in a more run-of-the-mill setting, for instance: <S> Old Man didn't know why [ she | certain people ] had decided his name was "John": it wasn't, but he couldn't be bothered correcting them. <S> Note <S> : The technique Deighton uses keeps it clear to the reader that they don't know the name of the main character: he has not been named up to this point in the book, and as soon as a name is mentioned, it is immediately made clear that it is not the character's real name. <S> This is in contrast to, say, The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. <S> Here (spoiler-block for anyone who has not read the book): <S> The main character is identified early on – both to characters within the story and to the reader – as Charles Calthrop . <S> While we [the reader] see him assume many false identities throughout the book to evade the authorities, we "know" he is Charles Calthrop. <S> It is only in the epilogue that this certainty is disabused and we learn that neither we, nor the authorities, know his real name. <A> I'd imagine, the Old Man is one of the central characters of your story. <S> Why not name the story after him and use his name there? <S> Doing so would accentuate his stature while creating an air of mystery. <S> Allowing one person to called the Old Man by his name also conveys depth and sensitivity. <S> I'm not sure if you've got a short story title in mind <S> but I would simply call it "John" and leave it at that.

I think a good way to do this is to simply said "(person) called his name." Have the narrator tell the action in that place, not show it.

How can a main character in a visual novel attract people of different personalities besides having a single trait each of them is attracted to? Ok, so I currently have a visual novel (For those who do not know, it's a video game that's almost all story. The character may have a few choices in the matter, but most of it is about watching the story. A personal favorite of mine is Nekopara .(wiki link: http://nekopara.wikia.com/wiki/Nekopara_Wiki )) In the visual novel, you are an unfortunate soul who was accidentally enrolled into the wrong school via some weird mistakes and snafus. Now, you are a student in an all-female school (As much as I'd like to go into more detail, I must go on to the question.) As you progress through the game, you find yourself surrounded by women of various walks of life, and somehow, you, the protagonist, are going to be able to capture their hearts (Not at the same time, however.) The problem I'm constantly running into is, most protagonists in these type of games are only like by the characters because he's kind to them despite all inclinations to run away screaming (There are some weird visual novels out there.) However, I wish to break that streak by making an actually well-developed protagonist. But, despite that, I won't be able to make it work with the different girls unless he becomes a completely different person for each of them. How do I avoid this? <Q> Surely you can imagine your protagonist possessing more than one character trait? <S> He can be intelligent and kind and charmingly clumsy? <S> Why then can't one girl be attracted to his wit, another - to his kindness, and a third - be charmed by his clumsiness? <S> That's not so outlandish, is it? <S> I like to think of myself as both intelligent and kind. <S> That is an oversimplification, but it is a place to start. <S> In fact, one girl might enjoy the intellectual challenge of arguing philosophy with him, while disagreeing on most of his points (she might, for example, see the world in a more cynical light than him), while another would enjoy trading quips with him, and a third - actually agree with his philosophy and find him inspiring. <S> All three, in this case, are attracted mainly to his intelligence. <S> In essence, to achieve what you want, you'd need a well-developed protagonist, who has more than one character trait, and also well-developed romantic interests, who also have more than one character trait. <S> With both partners being fully fleshed out characters, you can shape different relationships. <S> It's said that "opposites attract" and also that "similarities attract". <S> So you can have the romantic interests similar to your MC in some aspects, opposite in other aspects (both elements contributing to attraction in different ways) and also there might be traits that each partner finds somewhat annoying in the other, but is willing to forgive. <S> People are not perfect, right? <S> And, quite important: factors in a relationship would include traits, but also ideals each character espouses, past actions, shared interests... And also physical appearance, but I don't think that's useful to your particular case. <A> Assuming your VN is mostly relationship and dialog, an MC who listens might be a good excuse to draw out each woman's story. <S> Another idea might be to simply put the MC in the path of each woman with a delivery route or a particular job (food service) – some superficial connection that leads to brief daily interactions. <S> The MC starts to notice small things about them, and the VN is about finding a more meaningful connection (a mutual hobby, a shared interest). <S> So rather than come up with a personality list for each woman, start with finding a common thread or single activity that could open the door to all the others. <S> Usually in VN's not all paths are taken and not all endings are "wins". <S> Some of the relationships should go in unexpected (even unwanted) directions. <A> If your premise was true --no one person with a consistent personality can be attractive to multiple people --then <S> no real person would ever date more than one other person. <S> Let's look at some real world ones: <S> 1 - Physical attractiveness: <S> A lot of different people will be attracted to someone beautiful, regardless of other traits. <S> It's just a fact of life. <S> 2 - Kindness or otherwise good personality: <S> You dismissed it as clichéd but again, this is a real-life attractive trait for many, otherwise different people. <S> 3 - Mystery <S> : A lot of people find someone mysterious, stand-offish or otherwise unapproachable to be an irresistible challenge. <S> 4 - A bold or vivid personality - People like a leader. <S> 5 - Money or power <S> - Nearly as universal as #1. <S> 6 <S> - Inexplicable attractiveness - Hey, some people just have "it." <S> I could go on, and on, but all of this is completely in line with real world romances. <S> The only problem I see is if it's important to your storytelling construct that each love interest have a unique trait they like (in which case, I would direct you to @Galastel's answer). <A> Does he have to attract the attention and interest of all of them? <S> Perhaps choices he makes will irk some or the courtship of A will make F,H and G less interested in him as they are her friends. <S> The same choice could intrigue C, A’s rival, and she might try testing his resolve and loyalty. <S> A <S> ’s friends would not necessarily be unavailable in the future, but might take more effort. <S> This could add more possible endings and paths to such endings and make it more replayable

The same person can be attractive to multiple other people for various reasons. The MC could be a good listener, a single trait that leads to each woman opening up in different ways.

How do you make a scene "tasteful"? Let's say you have a scene that contains nudity. There are many ways to do it wrong and have it just be a pervy scene, but there are also ways to make it "tasteful" in a way where it's slightly less awkward to accidentally watch it with your parents. Now I don't really know how to define the word tasteful in this context, but one of the examples of tasteful nude scenes I've heard would be the one from Titanic. So... what makes a scene like that tasteful as opposed to just... fan service, I guess? What steps should you take to avoid making it distasteful? <Q> For example Red Planet Carrie-Anne Moss's character gets out of the shower and asks Val Kilmer to pass her a towel the audience don't actually see much of her naked but <S> Kilmer's character does, and makes it a big deal, the scene comes off as tawdry, on the other hand in Supernova <S> everyone is stripping down and the audience sees a lot of skin, but because none of the characters pay any attention to it the scene comes off as part of working life for them, shrug and move on. <A> Nudity can be implied: a dress hitting the floor or a woman shown topless from the back . <S> (Those are TV Tropes links, you've been warned.) <S> If a character walks in on another undressed character (or two), camera might focus on his embarrassment, rather than on whoever is naked. <S> Or the camera might pan away from a nude character or couple: show faces, hands, the rain outside the window, cut to when they're getting dressed again... <S> But those are visual elements. <S> I'd say part of the "tastefulness" comes from how the scene is framed within the story. <S> This image is from a Firefly episode: <S> the MC has been robbed of everything, and stranded in a desert. <S> The scene is framed as being a comical episode. <S> We don't get to see "naughty bits", but it's not just that - the story never frames the situation as particularly sexy. <S> Only a little. <S> Notably, as @Ash points out, the MC pays no attention to his lack of clothes, continuing to act normally, and his crewmembers act normal as well. <S> His Romantic Interest is seen actively not looking. <S> What makes a scene not tasteful is excessive focus on gratuitous titillation and sex. <S> It can be a long scene of darkness and sex-sounds. <S> It can be shots that focus on anatomy, and characters touching said anatomy, even if the anatomy is covered. <S> It can be nudity put out for display. <A> This is going to be up to the director, but I think you basically don't show anything that can't be seen in a tiny string bikini. <S> So there is a strong suggestion of nudity (because there are no strings or bikini) by the setting and pose, but no frames showing nipples or genitals or pubic hair. <S> Note the actor (male or female) may be nude while filming; or wearing stick on coverings; and this discreteness is accomplished by the director setting poses and then in editing judiciously cutting frames (or switching cameras, or ending scenes) when the prohibited body parts (or the coverings) appear. <S> In Titanic a nipple is shown, briefly (20 sec?), a naked butt, and there is a drawing of full frontal nudity, not the real thing. <S> It gets a PG-13 rating because the nudity is brief and is not part of a sex scene; despite sexual tension in the scene, it was an art scene (the girl was posing for a drawing). <S> (However, some believe that rating was allowed due to the stature of the director (James Cameron) and the budget of the film.) <S> Intercourse and orgasm are implied with zero nudity, by having it occur in a car with steamy windows; basically any kind of body concealment will suffice (a blanket, shower curtain, soapy water, or just something in the way of seeing the prohibited body part, like an arm or furniture). <S> This is a reason many sex scenes are filmed with the actors under covers (unrealistic in my experience), or are "spontaneous" in full clothing, it is easy to conceal intercourse under a skirt (and to simulate it). <A> Sure, they are attracted to each other, but Rose at her heart is rebelling against her mother and her fiancé--and we all agree that that man is horrid. <S> Jack has been established as a good man. <S> He's an artist. <S> He has drawn nudes before, and his goal is art and form (I believe he expresses this, talks about the french prostitute's hands). <S> He blushes when Rose is nude. <S> It becomes OK for her to be nude, because he is suddenly very conscious of the intimacy. <S> So, there is a lot of work ahead of time to establish that these characters' motivations are other than get naked and get some action. <S> And when she is nude, there is a decent response from each of them to acknowledge the tenderness of the moment. <S> This is like finding the camera angles, but in words. <S> I don't know that you can ever watch a nude scene with parents or children and not find it awkward, but I think if you are looking for tasteful then the answer is fairly straightforward. <S> Make the scene not about nudity, but about something else, and have the characters acknowledge through reaction, words, choices, that this is a tender and intimate moment.

Speaking purely to nudity, without sex, implied or otherwise, the less attention the characters pay to their clothing, or lack thereof, the more tasteful scenes tend to be. I think the nude scene in Titanic is 'tasteful' because of the motivations of the two characters.

Phrasing to balance immense speed with boredom Through much of my novel the protagonist spends considerable time cruising over various landscapes at speeds exceeding 500 km/h. To you or me this is significant but to the character, it's "just a job." The obvious phrases like "he sped" or "they raced" are going to get old quick in this context. I want the reader to experience the thrill of flying across the land at thrilling speeds, without betraying the routineness of it for the pilot. For example, "Focusing on the muffled whistle of air screaming across the hull outside, he watched hypnotic streaks of greenery flowed endlessly below the craft and allowed his mind to sink into a sort of lazy trance." But I'm struggling to keep each "update" fresh, or to avoid irritating repetition. Thoughts? <Q> I'm not sure that can be done, especially if the MC is bored with it. <S> It isn't a good idea to try and thrill the reader with the same thing again and again and again anyway! <S> So do it once, and then gloss over it. <S> In my story, one character is an extraordinary marksman. <S> He takes this for granted, but nobody that sees him in action for their first time ever takes it for granted. <S> Their praise, astonishment, or laughter pleases him, it reminds him he is special, and there is nothing else particularly remarkable about him (by my design). <S> So I have, in the story, devised several reasons (including one early on) for him to exercise his talent in front of strangers, and amaze them. <S> One in particular that sees this several times stops having any reaction. <S> The marksman notices that, but he doesn't mention it: Because he gets it, he knows that after awhile, his friend would be more surprised if he missed ! <S> The amazing things we experience will become routine and "just the way things are," after a few exposures. <S> This goes for readers too, you can thrill them once with astonishing speed, but that's it. <S> After that, they get it: The ship is crazy fast. <S> So pour all your attention into the first description. <S> Make it long and milk the first-time. <S> You can change something, add a fight or counter-attack, add a malfunction, hit a damn goose at 500 kmh. <S> This is why fights and battles can be evergreen, we can make each one different with different enemies, positions, stakes, and defenses. <S> But what you are talking about is static and unchanging, so the description just seems repetitive, and that gets boring quick. <A> I have a few pilots in my book and they are blasé about flying at high speeds but never about flying itself. <S> They are passionate about this task they have and that the jets they fly are somewhat enhanced is a matter of course. <S> I mention things they see while flying, the shape of clouds ahead and the information they glean about the winds from the shapes they see. <S> One person might look at a cloud and see a running dog - they see wind shear or a change in wind speed that they factor into their calculations and adapt to circumstances before they happen. <S> If the MC is blasé about it, perhaps there is another character for whom this is bright and new, less jaded by experience. <S> The skill of my pilots is something remarked upon by other characters, like Amadeus’ marksman and the pilots are rather amused by this as this is their normal <S> and it takes other things to thrill them. <S> If the MC is a passenger, he might just expect travel from New York to Paris to take x hours and any deviation from that norm irks him. <S> If your MC is a pilot, maybe they yearn to be flying for pleasure in a glider rather than carting strangers to their destinations just to pay the bills. <S> The contrasts between the peace and silence of gliders and the noise of the plane he must fly can come into play. <S> The sounds of the plane would be something the pilot will heed constantly as they are cues to whether all is well that are more reliable than the alarms that may or may not be working depending on when it was last maintained - and by whom. <S> The whistle would have a particular pitch that would tell him how fast they were travelling. <A> When bored, the mind often just wanders in thoughts of its own. <S> The repetitive scene can be a moment for the character to express his/her thoughts, or for the author to introduce flashbacks. <S> You can use the boredom as an excuse to digress away from current events. <S> Examples: <S> Character thoughts:"... <S> And there went again the endless plains of Void. <S> MC yawned wondering whether the seeming repetition of the barren landscape was but a mockery of her whole life: eventful. <S> [...] The plains again, void like their cursed name. <S> MC couldn't even feel annoyed by their sight. <S> It was something that had to be done, for the sake of it. <S> Like living. <S> Like completing {quest of story}." <S> Flashbacks:"The ship whizzed once again across the plains of Void. <S> MC hands operated mechanically across the dashboard, while her memory brought her back images of Place. <S> It had been a joyful childhood in Place, with parents and friends. <S> [...] Again the images of Place raced in her mind, just as static as the landscape of Void accompanied her in her routine journey. <S> Place, so distant, yet so dear to her... " <A> Typically you present your story through a point-of-view, and if your character's perspective on something is boredom, it doesn't make sense to present it as thrilling to the reader . <S> For instance, most of us hurtle across our landscapes in big two-ton metal machines at speeds over 60 miles per hour, but few of us perceive it as thrilling, because it is too habitual. <S> But there is an easy way around this problem: <S> Just have your main character think back to the days when this was all new to him , and he found it the most exciting thing in the world. <S> You can have a fully described flashback to those early days. <S> Then you can contrast that with his present perceptions, and show how much they've changed.

If nothing changes about the speed, it is boring to describe it in detail the second time.

How should you use sexually deviant monsters in fantasy? terror is a real and powerful thing. A monster is ever-so-slightly scarier if it violates you in some way. there have been many of these types of creatures seen in myths and fairy tales. This goes beyond the cliche succubus concept, and includes monsters such as the liderc and the pobobawa. Many of these monsters are far more terrifying in origin myths, and a call to remain steadfast in society's values and traditions. Whether it's warning against sex with loose men or women, or cautioning against the spread of diseases, there is often a morality tale behind them. These kind of creatures are sometimes used today with various results. Manga like Berserk or warhammer go out of their way to show the gritty details and get very visual. Since sexual assault is a serious and sensitive issue in today's world, how should these creatures be portrayed? Should they be used to add shock value or add to the grimdarkiness of a world? Should they be portrayed differently ? <Q> Like all things in writing you write for an audience. <S> There is no direct answer because each audience will have different tastes. <S> If you're trying to scare your audience there are lots of ways to do this including or excluding a sexual monster. <S> You need to answer the question why before you write one in. <S> Why does this monster matter to the world, characters, and story. <S> What is it a foil for? <S> What does it say? <S> Why is it interesting? <S> There is no native should. <S> Should requires a moral architecture to create the emperitive. <S> If you have such a moral architecture, or there is one you want to examine, then proceed. <S> If you write without reason, it will show. <A> So much of this depends on your ability as a writer. <S> In the hands of one author, a monster like this could enhance the story, with a different author, it could cause people to throw the book across the room. <S> The idea, in and of itself, can work, but it's tricky. <S> What I think makes the biggest difference is the underlying morality tale. <S> Sure, they're for both men and women, but in different ways. <S> For men, it's about being careful who you choose as a sexual partner, because women can steal your power or are monsters in disguise or will drag you down. <S> But for women, the message is, don't have sexual urges at all. <S> Don't disobey your father or husband. <S> And don't spend any time with outside men. <S> A man might be in danger from a monster, but a women is no longer worthy of protection from monsters if she "strays." <S> Even the most modern works often draw on these reservoirs of sexism. <S> And authors who write about periods or invented worlds where such sexism was indeed rampant, will fall into the trap of believing they must mirror it (racism gets the same treatment, but <S> those are different sorts of monsters). <S> So decide what your underlying message is. <S> Do you want a monster that reinforces it? <S> Or one that reinforces the prevailing morality that your characters chafe against? <S> Does your monster punish those who freely enter into sexual relationships or perhaps is it a monster who punishes those who violate consent? <A> Deviant in reproduction One of the better uses of a deviant monster is in Alien . <S> A male crew member is "impregnated" orally . <S> The resulting baby is described as something that "shouldn't exist", grows full-sized in hours, has acid for blood, etc. <S> The monster is deviant from conception and defies all of nature's laws. <S> The sexual violation is all metaphor – if you don't recognize the rape subtext you can still empathize with the body anxiety and Kane's vulnerability. <S> If you do recognize the subtext your sense of dread is elevated and the setup pays off. <S> Deviant in pleasure <S> The Cenobites from Hellraiser are expected to be beautiful women who are skilled in the sexy arts, but turn out to be sadomasochistic flesh monsters that want to peal off your skin. <S> Their sexual deviancy is a promise that is taken to the unwelcome extreme. <S> Both blur sexual imagery and universal body anxiety. <S> The first victims are male, making them instantly scarier and stronger. <S> Arguably, the body violation would not have the same impact if the monsters were selectively hetero-normalized. <S> Actually just sex, but unpleasant and one-sided <S> As Kirk so wonderfully said in his answer <S> "If you write without reason, it will show." <S> I'll paraphrase: if your monsters are just a thinly disguised sexploitation fantasy , no one will be fooled into thinking it is something dark and angsty. <S> Monsters of the flesh have to be monsters of the mind too. <S> If the idea scares/threatens/violates <S> you <S> personally it is worth exploring. <S> Worst case scenario the rape-y space slug scene backfires and becomes a legendary bad joke .

If it is there just to shock and titillate with power fantasies against "empty skirts", it will deservingly get eyerolls from anyone who doesn't share that fantasy, and sees it as a Mars Needs Women trope . You can write whatever, so long as it is engaging.

Ensemble cast novel - pitch and synopsis My mystery novel features an ensemble cast of seven characters. Since I can't talk about all of them in the short span of the query letter, I've decided to focus on the antagonist. He's the main driving force behind the plot and despite appearing the least, he's ever-present in the minds of the other characters. Of course, I'll still mention in the letter that there are multiple POVs united in theme. This, however, leads me to two issues. 1) Right now I've written a synopsis of almost 600 words where all the characters appear. The other six all influence the main plot and I can't really pick one out and eliminate him/her without losing something crucial to understanding the story. However, I'm afraid the agent reading the synopsis will have a difficult time remembering who is who. Is there an efficient way to make the agent care about each character in such a short span? Or should I do the same for the synopsis - focus on the antagonist and mention the others as the group opposing him? Thing is, they only learn to act as a group at the very end by opposing the antagonist... before that, each does his/her own thing inside interwoven alliances. 2) My very first chapter is not from the antagonist's POV. The first chapter is more of a short, 450-words event that triggers the main plot (kind of like the victim of a murder mystery dying on the first page, but with a slight twist). The second chapter is from the antagonist's POV and how he plots the entire action that will further occur in the book. It references the event happening in the first chapter. There are some agents I've stumbled upon who only request the first chapter. Should I rewrite my second chapter (featuring the antagonist's POV) as the first one? I feel like something from the book's voice/atmosphere/theme/understanding of the first chapter's POV character will be lost that way, even if it can somehow be worked into the plot. Edit: I guess I should have cleared some things and reworded my questions better. I can't combine the first two chapters. My book follows a pretty strict internal logic where each chapter is from a different character's POV. Chapter 1 focuses on character A and triggers the events in the book. Chapter 2 focuses on character B (the antagonist) who decided to hurry the entire plot of the book because of what happened in chapter 1. I could take out chapter 1 since I already mention the event in chapter 2, but I'd rather have it shown for clarity than merely mentioned. My reworked questions are these: 1) Would seven mentioned characters in a synopsis be too much/too difficult to track? Is there another way to avoid this confusion other than simply labeling some of them as "the group"? 2) Since in my (much shorter) query letter I focus on the antagonist (and lump the other six characters as "the group", for space constraints), and I do mention it's an ensemble cast, would an agent automatically expect the first chapter to be from the antagonist's POV? And since it isn't, would that be an instant rejection? <Q> I think you are focussing too much on introducing the characters in the synopsis too much. <S> You are telling a mystery tale. <S> Let a reader discover who are the characters later, it is not important to an agent. <S> Focus instead on the situation and the atmosphere of the story. <S> Leave a veil of mystery on the characters and their motives. <S> You want to pitch your characters way too much and you should definately not rewrite to try and fit an agents taste because of this. <S> What they want to see is if the grand theme of the story fits their ability to sell it to a publisher. <S> And when they request a chapter to read it is to see if the quality standard of your writing is good enough in their eyes. <S> You felt confident enough with your story to pitch it to an agent. <S> You probably edited the story multiple times and let other people read and judge it. <S> You should not change any part of the story (yet) <A> If your novel has structure (and is not a random collection of unrelated events), then there is something that unifies your ensemble cast: they work together toward a common goal, deal in different ways with the same problem, happen to live in the same place, etc. <S> Talk about that in your pitch. <S> You must have had a reason to put this group of characters together, and this reason is what you need to pitch. <S> Readers usually open a book and begin to read the first page to evaluate whether they want to buy it. <S> So the first chapter (and especially the first page) are what will sell your book. <S> That is the reason why agents want to read the beginning of the book. <S> If that part doesn't sell the book, it doesn't matter how great the rest of the book is, because the reader will never get there. <S> There are many questions and answers on this site about the importance of beginnings and how to write a good one. <S> A common recommendation is that you might need to delete as much from the beginning until you get to a gripping start (and rework what you have deleted into later parts of the novel, if the information there is important, which it often isn't). <S> Another common recommendation is not to have a prologue , as many readers despise them. <S> (A third recommendation is that when you are a new author you should ignore that fact that popular authors have managed to sell all kinds of bad writing to their agents, from weak beginnings to prologues.) <A> 1) Would seven mentioned characters in a synopsis be too much/too difficult to track? <S> Is there another way to avoid this confusion other than simply labeling some of them as "the group"? <S> The length of a synopsis can be one full single-spaced page to four full pages depending on the agent and genre. <S> 600 words is on the short end. <S> On the other hand, seven named characters may be bumping up against the upper end. <S> (mine has five.) <S> The agent reads the synopsis to make sure the structure of your story is present--a good narrative arc with proper pacing. <S> Each plot point, each twist, and so on. <S> There should be a point of no return, a moment of doom, a twist, a climax. <S> Don't focus on the characters, focus on the action/plot/pivots and twists. <S> You can structure your synopsis roughly like your story, too: a little setup, but much more of the thick of it--getting into the messy details, and the climax and resolution. <S> (incidentally, I'd say if your first chapter is tight, leave it at 450 words. <S> If it hooks, agents will want more, and some will definitely appreciate a shorter chapter one. <S> The numbers are something like ten queries per day for most agents. <S> Assuming an average chapter length of 3,000 words, that's a lot of words. <S> I'd hate to read 30,000 words each and every day. <S> I'd be relieved to have a 450 word sample that hooks me.) <S> 2) <S> Since in my (much shorter) query letter I focus on the antagonist (and lump the other six characters as "the group", for space constraints), and I do mention it's an ensemble cast, would an agent automatically expect the first chapter to be from the antagonist's POV? <S> Yes, I believe this is true. <S> 2B) <S> And since it isn't, would that be an instant rejection? <S> I don't know, because it will depend on the writing. <S> Agents repeatedly say they want voice above all else. <S> But I suggest writing the query from the PoV of the opening character. <S> Caveat: I am not an agent. <S> These thoughts are my best understanding.

Bring in the characters as you need them to illuminate the story.

Should I write my book in first person's POV or third person's POV? I'm an author, but recently I started this book, but I had to put it on hold it's a Nigerian/American book and mostly I write in 1st person's pov but I'm thinking if I should write the book in the 3rd persons pov, and I've never written a book in 3rd POV but I feel most people prefer 3rd persons pov and I really dunno how to do that. And 1st pov is easier for me soooo I need advice, which should I do <Q> I think you should try! <S> I always thought I was a pantser, but now that I have outlined and written a novel, I never want to discovery write again. <S> Same for viewpoint. <S> I've been writing from first person perspective for years, but now I have written the first book in third person and while I needed a few weeks to really get into it, <S> in the end it worked so well both in writing and as a final result <S> , that I'm happy that I attempted it. <S> And of course I'll go back to writing first person if the story demands it . <S> So just try it, if you feel that your story could do well with third person perspective. <S> And if it doesn't work, or if it isn't for you, then you have learned something that will help you write better books in the future. <S> Have the courage to learn to write , and don't expect of yourself to write your masterpiece right away. <A> First of all, I've never come actually met anyone who has said that they prefer to read 1st or 3rd pov. <S> But to answer your question, if you're better/more comfortable with 1st <S> then you should probably stick with 1st. <S> However you might find that the story needs to be told in 3rd. <S> For example, I started to write a story in 3rd person limited, but found that it was better told in 1st person, and have since committed to finishing my first draft in 1st person. <S> Additionally, because you've never written in 3rd, then you should try writing the first draft, or at least a variety of writing exercises in 3rd person to expand your skill as a writer and to get at least somewhat comfortable with actually writing in 3rd. <S> Before you chose between any two (or more) methods, you need to be sure that you can use both methods with at least some degree of ease/familiarity and or be willing to commit to gaining the skills needed to use the chosen method. <A> I personally only write in 3rd person limited (3PL), and recommend it. <S> In 3PL the narrator can describe settings and feelings, thoughts and memories of the MC at considerable length, without seeming phony. <S> To me, doing this in 1st Person seems unnatural; no real person goes on about such descriptions in their head, but we expect a narrator to do it. <S> Also, every book I love is written in 3rd Person (not necessarily limited, not necessarily focused on only one character). <S> I don't think I've ever read a best selling 1st Person novel; if they exist I'd bet best-selling 3PL novels far outnumber best-selling 1st Person novels. <S> I recommend 3rd Person unequivocally; and my own work is always 3PL. <S> To me it is what I expect; if I pick up a novel in a book store and the first word is "I", I put it down. <S> I think that style inevitably grates on me because I didn't do any of this stuff, and I know I am supposed to be reading as if somebody is telling me a story, but that's not how it comes across. <S> I prefer a clear distinction, I am reading about what Merlin did, or what Harry Potter did. <S> As for "how to do it", learn by example. <S> Pick up a best-seller by Stephen King and see how he does it. <A> Yes and then again no, there is no one answer to this question, write using whatever perspective gets your point across. <S> Usually it's a good idea to pick a perspective and stick with it throughout a given narrative but even that is not an absolute necessity. <S> I've read a good deal of work that uses multiple first person POVs with the occasional piece of third-person-limited where the narrative steps back from the personal and gets bigger picture for a passage. <S> While you're drafting POV and tense are not essential concerns; get the ideas on the page worry about lining everything up when you go into the editing phase. <S> Also note that it is often easier to translate first person passages into third person scenes than the other way around when you do come to editing.

To find out what works best for you, you'll have to try different approaches.

Why would someone in an apocalypse travel with a person who is totally dependent on them? So, a story idea I've had for a long time is set in an apocalypse (cause not explained), and the two main characters are vastly different. Tyler is 20 years old, he watched his parents killed in horrible fashion, and turned into a hardened, cold, and rugged survivor. He also is highly skilled in fighting and scavenging. However, Lucy is 7 years old, and suffers from low-functioning autism. This makes her a savant (this is a central part of the story.) Her parents lived as comfortable as they could, and made Lucy's life as comfortable as possible. Lucy's ability attracts a local warlord's interest, and he orders her captured for her talent. Tyler happened to witness her escape, and had to fight his way out. So, why would Tyler save Lucy, when she can barely use the restroom right? <Q> Even in the direst of circumstances, do humans really need an 'excuse' to care for the vulnerable? <S> Is cynicism <S> so 'in' that people need an objective, rational reason to do these things? <S> If Tyler is a protagonist that people are supposed to see as... <S> well, human, it would make sense that no matter how rugged he is, his protective instinct still exists. <S> If anything would go against his humanity, it would be a later heartwrenching scene where he discusses (internally) the rational, yet instinctively abominable possibility that he'll have to leave the child for dead to preserve himself. <S> Not sure if you know anything about evolution, but human evolution doesn't favour lone wolves or every man for himself. <S> It favours co-operation and protection of children. <S> Humans are extremely fragile <S> while young and take way longer than most great apes to reach an age where they can survive independently. <S> Protective instinct doesn't happen despite survival instinct. <S> It happens because of it. <A> Love. <S> Connection. <S> Attachment. <S> A sense of duty. <S> There's a part of him that longs to return to wholeness and peace. <S> If you want to see a similar example of how this might play out, and some of the feelings and motivations behind it, check out the Miguel and Penelope storyline in the recent The Purge TV series. <A> Because he witnessed her escape, he knows she has value of some sort. <S> He also noticed that the warlord saw value in her so has corroboration of sort. <S> The movie LadyHawke had a similar reason for the cursed knight to take up with the thief. <S> Depending on the state of the population, he could also see her as important to the future of the species simply due to her gender. <S> I would ask Tyler why he chose to help her - seven is rather young to be useful to a survivalist character as you describe. <S> Does she remind him of someone he once knew? <S> Perhaps rather than being completely dead inside, he could be hard and maybe not even understand why he takes this brat under his protection.

He knows life is a gamble and this girl is his way to hedge his bets as he might be able to trade her for something useful. Especially if said vulnerable person isn't harming anyone in their existence, humans (especially 'stronger' humans) tend to feel a protective instinct for these kinds of people. I feel like, if you were to dig a little deeper, Lucy might remind Tyler of a time before he was so damaged and jaded.

How do you keep track of projects/ideas until you have time to write them down? I've read the answers to this question but they focus on getting ideas written down pretty much as they occur, that's not my issue, I have both digital and analog methods for doing so with me at all times. But I can't always use them right away and I often lose the thread by the time I can. This is usually because I'm either already writing something else down or I'm on a phone call. At the moment I have to rely on recurrence of the idea and hope I'm less busy when I remember it this time but I can't help thinking there has to be a better way. So my question is does anyone know a reliable technique for retaining an idea few a few minutes so you have time to write it down? Please note that I really do need a technique rather than technology as if I have time for the latter I have time to write it down. <Q> There's the Memory Palaces method, which dates back to antiquity. <S> There are whole books written about it, but here's a much simplified version: <S> Imagine you are standing on a street. <S> Stretched out in front of you <S> are ten objects, representing the ten numbers from one to ten. <S> One is a giant bun. <S> Two is a shoe. <S> Three is a bee, and so forth. <S> To remember something, create a vivid mental image of it interacting with the "number object. <S> " <S> For instance if your first scene is two people fighting, imagine them fighting on top of the bun. <S> Then when you go back to remember it, just picture the bun, and the other image will automatically come back to you. <S> This will get you up to ten remembered items, in order. <S> The theory behind it is that the really tough thing about memory is that it doesn't have an index. <S> This method creates an index. <A> Tell someone. <S> The act of speaking (or writing) <S> an idea will reinforce its memory. <S> You can tell whoever you happen to be with. <S> Or call someone and leave them a message. <S> Or call yourself and leave a message (but that would fall into the methods you've already considered I'm sure). <S> If you're somewhere where you can't say it out loud, or write it down, then rehearse it in your head as if you were saying it out loud or preparing to write it down. <S> Try to say at least a couple key words out loud. <S> Mouthing or whispering them also works. <S> I can imagine places where you wouldn't be able to stop and write. <S> Maybe you get your best ideas in the shower, or during your morning jog, or while driving, or in a meeting at work where you're supposed to be paying attention. <A> I was cleaning the barn one afternoon and the first four lines of a ballad came to me. <S> I repeated them, many times, letting it grow longer until I had the entire piece, which I continued to repeat. <S> By the time I got to pen and paper, I had 210 lines memorized. <S> It was very old school. <S> On another occasion, I was working when a plot idea came <S> and I memorized the bullet points until I could commit them to paper.

If you can only tell yourself, do it, just say it out loud.

How to balance a character‘s duty versus his conscience I have a character, a secondary antagonist who is following his sense of duty and pursuing a former asset. Said asset is injured, tired and cornered, seriously considering making a stand and going out taking as many of the hunters as possible. The secondary antagonist realizes that the ones they are chasing have been behaving more honourably than they have. Their initial attack was met with tranquilizers so most of their casualties are not casualties. He also realizes that their actions, while effective and hardly a violation of protocol, just don’t seem right to him. He suspects that driving the man to desperate acts might result in a desperate act which could be very costly to them in lives. Secondary antagonist wishes to accomplish his mission with minimal loss of life - his in particular. It strikes this character that the best way to achieve this is not necessarily by shooting everything that moves, but by offering assistance in exchange for surrendering. The ‘no one needs to die’ speech would be met with scepticism, but this man does not want to act like a villain. He is doing his job and if that means shooting everything, so be it, but it might be easier on all if the asset just tosses out his gun, accepts aid for himself and his partner and lives to fight another day. There are no villains, just people doing what they think they must. My question is how best to balance the man’s sense of duty and the requirements of his job with the not so silent voice of his conscience? He feels angst and has a strong inclination to just shout ‘toss your weapons and we will bring medical assistance. <Q> There is no conflict between duty and conscience <S> The man's duty is to neutralize the asset, with minimal loss of life and resources on his side. <S> You're saying he prefers at this point to capture the asset. <S> This is not counter to doing his duty. <S> In fact, there are many tactical advantages to it. <S> He removes the risk that the asset will do a suicide run and take out more of his soldiers. <S> He is more likely to come out of this alive and well himself. <S> He makes it possible for the asset to be questioned, which may prove useful. <S> He makes it easier for his side to discover who caused the asset to turn and how. <S> If the asset stole documents or materials, they are more likely to be recovered (less damage if they're on the asset's person and a possible route to find them if they are hidden). <S> The fact that the man would rather see his former ally alive is just a bonus feature. <S> Now, why would the asset agree to surrender? <S> Because he is not a fool. <S> All those reasons above are ones he can see as clearly as your reader. <S> Maybe it's a trick to get him out in the open for a clean shot, maybe not. <S> If he refuses to surrender, he (and his partner) will die. <S> If he agrees to surrender, he has a good chance at living. <S> Most people would take the chance at life, especially when it's also someone else's life. <S> As for the offer of medical assistance, that would be sincere. <S> Why? <S> Because the asset is of a lot more use to the man's allies alive. <S> The man knows this. <S> The asset knows this. <S> This will influence his decision. <A> Duty is a kind of indirect conscience <S> His duty obligates him to perform actions which don't square with his conscience. <S> Struggling to square that circle will never be simple, and SHOULD be the source of personal crisis and story drama. <S> Because the question is fundamentally conscience vs. conscience, it's an opportunity for the character to explore what he really values, and to put those values into action. <A> Secondary antagonist may be living by a code of honor, like samurai is living by Bushido . <S> His sense of duty is strong, but he can't pursue his goals by violating his honor, and he respects the same sense of honor in his opponents. <A> There is a certain degree of overlap between 'duty' and 'conscience'. <S> In fact the way you describe it seems not so much as a moral dilemma as a practical problem. <S> Taking the fugitive alive isn't contrary to his duty as such it is just more difficult to achieve and more in line with his sense of ethics. <S> It's not as if he has a choice between killing him and letting him go entirely. <S> Equally in seeking to avoid a confrontation whcih would put his own men at risk his duty and conscience are in total agreement. <S> The specific problem seems to be convincing the fugitive that he is sincere in his offer of help. <A> This is a great scenario, you could take it in all sorts of different directions. <S> It depends what facet of the scenario you want to be the main theme. <S> You said this person is a secondary antagonist <S> so I guess there's a more important thread to weave with the principal antagonist. <S> So is this a subplot or a needed bridge in the plot? <S> The 2nd guy sounds like he's started to question some of the things he previously thought true. <S> That could develop into full rejection of previous ideals, once the foundations were proved rotten. <S> Or he could start to remember some past incident when he was in his quarry's position, get him to test his moral compass. <S> Or he could over-ride his sentiment, kill his prey, then suffer (or not) <S> the pangs of guilt and consciennce resulting. <S> He might find out that he'd been tricked into killing the guy... or, maybe your plot needs the hunted to live? <S> It's a great place to start from, whichever way you slice it :)

His conscience tells him to fulfill his duty. He would be doing his duty if he killed the asset or if he captured the asset.

How to describe a horse from the POV of someone who has never seen one? In my story, my narrator has only recently met other humans and the biggest creature she has ever interacted with are dogs. In the survivors' camp, she encounters their horses and is pretty freaked out, but I don't really know how to describe them in the way that someone would if they'd never seen them before. Help? <Q> You could look at how children perceive animals that they do not yet know. <S> What they do is subsume animals that look alike into the same category. <S> At first every animal is called a "dog" (if a dog is the first animal a child knows). <S> Then different classes of animals are differentiated, as the parents give names to the different species, and eventually the child will learn to recognize a new animal as different from the ones he or she knows and not give it a name that doesn't apply, even though she doesn't yet know the correct one. <S> If she is of adult intelligence, she might see the similarity but notice the differences (mane, different tail, different teeth, different feet, etc.) and think of it as "a dog-like animal" or, if she is more scientifically inclined, as "the big quadruped". <S> She might even be able to tell the predator from the herbivore, because a similar difference might exist in her home, and she might think of the new animal along these lines, e.g. as "the big herbivore" or, if she encounters the horse in its capacity as a mount, as "the mount". <S> Much of what she will call the horse will depend on the circumstances of the encounter (being ridden or on a pasture, from afar or suddenly upon her) as well as her personality and what aspect of it <S> she will focus on most (the smell, the neighing, the size, the shape, the color, etc.). <S> So your answer will very much depend on the story and the characterization you have chosen, and you need to derive at least part of your answer from that. <A> She would focus on both the familiar and the parts that are out of place. <S> Familiar: <S> * It's an animal (mammal) (4 legs, hairy <S> ) * It works in a helper capacity to humans <S> Bizarre: <S> * Its size! <S> This is probably her first impression. <S> * It can be ridden. <S> If this is part of her first view, it will likely be paired with size for her first reaction. <S> * Long face, neck, mane, and tail unlike any other she's seen. <S> * <S> Those feet! <S> Hooves not paws. <S> She might at first use words like "beast" and "monster." <S> Some of the familiar vs the new will be simultaneous and in other cases she'll go back and forth while she gets her bearings. <S> Not all new animals elicit this type of reaction, but one that is 10 times the size of any she's ever seen ( <S> and/or being ridden) surely will. <A> Horses are very much like ramped up dogs; the long face, the legs. <S> They have hooves instead of paws. <S> You have to add on manes and hairy tails. <S> But if somebody has seen large dogs, like a Labrador Retriever or Greyhound, the horse is very similar. <S> I'd look through breeds of dogs and see which one looks MOST like a horse, and describe it that way. <S> Just imagine that dog five and a half feet tall at the shoulder.

So, if your narrator is mentally immature or doesn't much care about animals she might first think the horse is a big kind of dog and call it "dog".

Glossary in my book While writing my book, I have noticed that not a lot of people, that read my draft understand half of the things I'm talking about. So I added a glossary at the end that they could reference via a link directly there. I do tons of research for this book, many of the things I have included into it involve Latin words, scientific names, and many other complicated words that no normal person would know off the top of their head. And I noticed, that as I add to the list, I retain more and more information about what I'm writing, so I don't have to keep looking the same things up all the time. My question is: will people be more willing to read my work if I clarify things using this glossary? <Q> If you've ever studied a foreign language, you'd know how annoying it is to go check words in a dictionary; it breaks the flow of your reading, breaks the immersion, and sends you off to perform a "chore". <S> A glossary is no different from a real dictionary in this regard - if your readers have to go search for a word, it breaks their flow, breaks their enjoyment of the book. <S> What you're writing should thus stand on its own right, no glossary needed. <S> If you're introducing some made-up or very rare terms, they should be understood from context, or described / explained within the text - whatever better suits each particular case. <S> (Consider, for example, how Tolkien explains what hobbits are, and lets you understand from context everything you need to know about orcs.) <S> One thing you should beware of is the trope called Calling a Rabbit a "Smeerp" . <S> That's when there's no real good reason to use an obscure term for something that has an English word. <S> Your 'dryadalum', 'stella', 'inlustris', 'solis' and 'morbus' come to mind. <S> Do you have a really good reason not to use 'elf', 'star' 'starlight' etc. <S> instead? <S> Remember also this xkcd: ( source ) <A> It boils down to which audience you are writing for. <S> Isaac Asimov and Michael Moorcock wrote to a general common denominator of reasonably educated average folk. <S> Their works are very popular even though discussing esoteric matters because it's accessible. <S> Still, if you read the opening pages of "Jewel in the Skull" it's horribly tired, trite, and overly tropish by modern standards. <S> I say the only reason not to include a glossary is if your editor/publisher/agent say it will market better without it, but try not to rely on people actually reading it. <S> Some pore over the appendices in LotR with glee, some will never crack those pages. <S> YMMV. <A> A Glossary Is not a Substitute for Clear Writing <S> If you were writing a nonfiction book where precise vocabulary was required, I'd say, yes, include a glossary! <S> If you were writing a very detailed fiction book with a lot of references to words used in a particular culture, language, religion, or historical period, I'd say, yes, include a glossary, but also make sure 90% of the words are obvious from context or unnecessary to know the exact meaning of. <S> In your case, you're writing a young adult novel (teenagers are the group for young adult books, though the readers can also include college-age) and one that isn't technical or historical with a large amount of necessary obscure vocabulary. <S> Every single one of your examples is something that most people will know (is there anyone over the age of 12 who doesn't know what a temple is?), something that will be obvious in context if you write it well, or something that can be explained at the time in the text. <S> Some of the words are simply unnecessary. <S> Do you need a glossary? <S> YES!! <S> For yourself. <S> You say that it's helping you as you write. <S> Should you publish the glossary with the book? <S> Probably not. <S> Will anyone who put the book down suddenly decide to read it because, hey, it has a glossary! <S> Hell no. <S> Not a single one. <A> My new novel will probably have a glossary because of necessity it will have Arabic Norse and archaic English words though not many. <S> All should be roughly clear from context but the glossary is.tger for those who want to double check. <S> Eg. <S> Rujan of the ship. <S> Rujan ,,, captain. <S> Ran with her screaming child to the maristan. <S> Maristan ,,,, hospital.

Ideally the glossary should not be necessary - try to write in such a way that on the one hand, those who don't already have the intuitive understanding from the words themselves will be able to glean it from the context, but on the other hand, don't browbeat your audience.

Effectively conveying an unreliable narrator I have been working on a post-apocalyptic novel for about a year. My female narrator/protagonist, named Eris, was isolated for almost all of her life until meeting a rogue group of survivors and having to assimilate into their world. It's the year 2212 and this world was devastated by decades of nuclear war, leaving a majority of the Earth polluted and radiated, which subsequently modified the human genome and gave many people strange and unexplainable abilities. Eris had convinced herself that she was the last person on Earth until the group of survivors picked her up, and while she does the possess uncontrollable and "supernatural" ability to manipulate life force, she is not only hiding this from her new companions, she has convinced HERSELF that this power does not exist and blocked out its usage from her mind, and this blockage of memories inadvertently manifests in odd nightmares and premonitions (when she was a girl, she lashed out and accidentally killed her father, aunt, and older sister, and when this commotion was investigated by other survivors, she murdered them out of fear). She not only is lying constantly to those around her, but even when she is alone she is unable to acknowledge the truth of her actions because they were extremely traumatizing and she harbors extreme guilt. She also misunderstands body language, does not realize the effects of her own actions and lies about them to herself resulting in inaccurate narration/retelling of the events, and frequently gets so caught up in her own emotions that she blocks out what is happening around her. My question is: how can I convey her inner conflict and inability to trust herself in an effective way? I don't simply want her to tell lie after lie, but I want her to build a sort of inability to both tell the truth, identify whether what she is saying IS the truth. The suppression of her powers and guilt about using them is a big reason for her unreliability and motivation behind her lies and manipulation. She isn't necessarily a sympathetic character and I don't need/want her to be, and I don't want her to learn how to tell the truth or develop morals; my main goal for her is to be a destructive person and a bad source of information. Thanks! <Q> Prove her wrong; have her contradict herself <S> You can initially illustrate that your narrator is unreliable by having her assert that she's the last person on Earth - and then show that it is not true. <S> Eris had convinced herself that she was the last person on Earth until the group of survivors picked her up Put doubt or conflict into the narration itself <S> "They laughed at my pleas for mercy, raising their guns to fire. <S> And then I... <S> NO. <S> I didn't do anything. <S> They just collapsed. <S> But I started sweating, like I'd run up a flight of stairs. <S> I must have been relieved. <S> Yeah, I was relieved." <S> On the other hand, you might be throwing away what could be a good reveal later if your hints about her unreliability are too obvious. <A> How can I convey her inner conflict and inability to trust herself in an effective way? <S> You have to first make the reader be willing to trust her, then voice her inner questions, and only finally start showing a ever increasing amount of factual contradictions. <S> At first, pose her as the unique undisputed narrator. <S> Pitch her loneliness, her distress, paint everything bleaker than it could possibly be, but offer no contradictory evidence. <S> If you need to contradict her, give her point of view that she honestly made a mistake, but everyone would have made the same mistake based on what she could have known. <S> Hundreds pages later, voice her inner questions about days which she exposed earlier, show that she cannot recall what happened, or that she may be considering retelling some facts in a different manner. <S> E.g. "She saw again the mangled bodies of her companions, dead after that horrible fall. <S> She stood, silent, shaken by the sudden worry that crawled under her skin. <S> Could a fall really bend a body in such a hominous manner? <S> Could falling from any height tear bones and sinews apart?" <S> Finally, in the last third of your book, expose her lies. <S> Make her aware that she tells and retells the story to suit her whims. <S> E.g. "those bodies again, spread at the bottom of the pillar, eaten by the wolves. <S> Wolves! <S> As if she had seen one! <S> It must have been the crows then, and the ravens. <S> Or the rats. <S> Or, perhaps, a maddening human, driven that insatiable hunger that still rumbled in her stomach. <S> Still, even in her wildest dreams she could not force herself to even touch any bit of that succulent flesh." <A> but intersperse it with flashbacks (she probably has PTSD given what she's been through) and/or nightmares. <S> After she meets other people, their words and actions will contradict some of what your MC says. <S> For example, they might be frightened of her for "no reason." <S> Or she will correctly narrate things but explain them wrong. <S> For example, she describes someone else's body language accurately but then interprets it in a way your reader will not. <S> Note: <S> * For some reason I'm seeing this as a first person book, which it may or may not actually be. <S> Or at least as 3rd person but strongly from her POV.

Depending on how thoroughly she has convinced herself that she does not have powers, you can have her argue with herself while narrating. One method would be to have her narrate things* in a straight-forward way

Should the name of a mythological creature be capitalized? The name of the mythological creature in my novel is "manananggal". When I'm referring to it, should I capitalize what it is? <Q> Yes, if it's the Grinch A unique creature, which is the Manananggal (effectively THAT creature's name), should be capitalized. <S> No, if it's a fairy <A> Mythological creatures, or creatures you've invented, don't need to be capitalised, just like real-life animals. <S> There's no grammatical difference between "a dog", "an orc", "a dragon" and "a manananggal". <S> To cite a famous example, In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. <S> (J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbit , chapter 1 - An Unexpected Party) <A> Do not capitalize the name of a species <S> There are hobbits, dwarves, dragons, horses, dogs, unicorns, cats, and so on. <S> Capitalize the personal name of an individual <S> They saw Peter, the human being. <S> They saw Capper, the dog. <S> They saw Smaug, the dragon. <S> Smaug is the personal name of this dragon. <S> Other dragons have other names. <S> Note that while there may be more than one Peter (and potentially more than one dragon named Smaug), there is no species of peters (or smaugs). <S> The same name can be given to different individuals (of different species: Peter the dog, Peter the dragon), but that still doesn't make them members of their own species, nor Peter a class name. <S> They are all Peters, but not peters. <S> Capitalize the species names of unique beings The Grinch. <S> Grinch is not the personal name of this creature, it is the name of its species. <S> But there is (or appears to be) only one of its kind, which makes its species name like a personal name in that it denotes a single unique individual. <S> When I say "dragon" you don't know which one I speak of, but when I say "Grinch" you know which one I mean because there is only one of them, which makes "Grinch" function like a personal name. <S> Now you could say that the Grinch is a fictional character, invented by a writer of literature, and that its author may have chosen to capitalize this word on a whim. <S> But there are examples from the real world that show the same difference in capitalization between the name of a mythological species and the name of a unique mythological being, such as banshee and Cailleach . <S> There are many banshees. <S> It is the name of a species and is therefore not capitalized. <S> But there is only one Cailleach. <S> Yet Cailleach is not the personal name of this being, but a description: cailleach means "old woman" in Irish, just as banshee means "fairy woman". <S> They are both species names, their difference is that Cailleach is a species with only one member, so she becomes the Cailleach , just like the Grinch. <S> As David Richerby has pointed out in a comment, "Grinch" and "Peter" are proper nouns , while "dragon" is not. <S> To summarize: <S> If there are many manananggals, don't capitalize the species name. <S> If there is only one Manananggal, capitalize its species or personal name.

Even if your creature is rare, if you are likely to ever refer to it as a manananggal (a member of a group or species), then don't capitalize it.

How do I make my characters sound British? This might sound silly, but I am trying to make one of my characters British and I have a hard time portraying that idea on paper. My novel is set in a fantasy land, nothing like this world and I am trying to make all my characters sound different and unique... any tips or advice? <Q> 'British' is a rather broad definition. <S> What place in Britain? <S> What time period? <S> What class? <S> Cockney sounds very different from Received Pronunciation, someone from Yorkshire would sound very different from someone from Newcastle. <S> And don't forget that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also parts of Britain. <S> Once you've settled on something, notice what makes the speech of that place-class-period unique . <S> It might be expressions that are not commonly used elsewhere. <S> It might be local words, like 'lad' and 'lass' in Scotland. <S> It might be a particular accent: ' <S> cup' is pronounced almost like 'coop' in Yorkshire. <S> ( Here 's a sample.) <S> You don't want to go too heavy on the "special" words, or you risk making the text incomprehensible, but you can use them as needed. <S> Accent is the hardest element to represent in writing. <S> You don't want to spell speech phonetically - <S> that makes it hard to understand. <S> But you can mention that a character pronounces certain words in a particular way. <S> You can make it the particular accent of some location in your fantasy world, and make the accent a recognisable trait of the character. <A> Using the British spelling of words plus some slang would help. <S> I have a character, very American <S> but he spent time in Britain and sometimes uses terms such as ‘twigged to’ instead of ‘realised’. <S> You can have two characters argue over what the last letter in the alphabet is called - zee or zed. <S> You can have him thinking he is not the centre of the universe. <S> I reside in Canada and find the British spellings a bit different still. <S> Since it is a fantasy, including some of the more common Anglo words might be difficult (lift instead of elevator, flat rather than apartment). <S> If it were me, I would make his English a bit more formal and use the occasional term not used in American English. <S> I would also have some character or another either remark upon or think that this character has a nice smooth accent and would make the dullest list sound interesting. <S> The reader would deduce that said character is not from the same area as the others. <A> Try watching some British sitcoms. <S> They'll vary greatly in where they're set and which British accents and dialects arise, but I guarantee you'll encounter something unlike your story's non-British characters. <S> In something like Fawlty Towers , there will be little in the way of regional effects; but with something like Only Fools and Horses , you may need to keep looking things up (especially Cockney rhyming slang), and in anything involving the Scottish or Welsh you might well resort to subtitles.

First, I would say, settle on an accent and a manner of speaking that are a bit more specific than "British" .

Writing a story about a immortal character I have a character that I want to have live for 200 years. I've used the beginning to fill out his backstory with events that are critical to the story, including how he became immortal. How would I write a time skip ahead? I do have events kinda planned, like I want him to master the piano and master painting during these 200 years and get educated, but how would I fill up these giant periods of time? <Q> Start with the present <S> It's common practice (for good reason) to introduce a long-lived character into the actual story you're actually interested in, and just gradually fill in what's necessary about the long history. <S> Less-defined history gives you flexibility <S> I'm not saying don't foreshadow - but a character with hundreds of years of only vague history can organically "grow backwards" (if you happen to be the kind of writer who writes organically). <S> This is not so much an invitation to give radical shifts like, "yeah, he was a pacifist, but I just decided that he's always been a warrior and loves fighting." <S> On the other hand, you might realize partway through a story that it would fit for a pacifist immortal to have acquired his pacifism in some horrible civil war. <S> If you've left room to elaborate on his history, new ideas are easier to incorporate. <S> Plus, one-off jokes of "I remember; I was there," become possible. <S> And maybe he's not even lying that he was there. <S> (But don't make him have been everywhere.) <S> Mystery is good <S> If you're dealing with a long-lived character, don't feel like you have to define everything. <S> Does the character play the piano? <S> Great! <S> Does it matter where and when that skill was acquired? <S> Only if it adds flavor now. <S> Again, start where the present story begins, and sprinkle a few interesting details about the character here and here, with the reader having plenty of room to imagine that there are many more interesting details which just haven't come up. <S> Defining a thing to death makes it dull. <S> When all else fails, have your exposition... <S> later, when you've got the reader hooked. <S> You don't have to put that scene of him learning technique from some great painter at the BEGINNING of a novel. <S> Put it in after some other character remarks how his style resembles Monet's work. <A> Show the finished character and have them remember details of their story that are relevant to the current scene as and when. <S> Nine Princes in Amber does this quite well, the protagonist has had a very long and eventful life, much longer than your story requires. <S> He remembers incidents from it as certain situations bring them to the fore, like sword training when he picks up a blade in self defense, and meeting Vincent Van Gogh when something nasty strikes him as picturesque. <S> These touches slowly build up into a rich backstory as the tale goes on and provide a framework for his current actions. <A> Tell What Happened Vaguely Do not go on too much. <S> Also, no one has a perfect memory, so he shouldn't either. <S> For example, Joe practiced art for 2000 years but pretty much ignored the world around him. <S> He knew of some wars and some countries falling, but he didn't pay too much attention, else he would be confused by the present day. <S> Start <S> With <S> Right <S> Now Don't tell about Joe in the past, tell about him now. <S> Drop his backstory in bits and pieces, like, "Oh," Joe said. <S> "You like my art? <S> I've practiced for an eternity, almost." <S> Other Advice <S> Also, a website for handling immortal characters (for DnD, but still relevant): http://rollforfantasy.com/ideas/immortal-characters.php <A> If you want to write these scenes, you could always put them in past tense. <S> For example, 100 years ago...piano, nest chapter 75 years ago... etc. <S> or you could just have him playing the piano during the story and say he’s 200 years old. <S> Your readers aren’t that stupid. <S> They will assume he’s provincially learned how to play piano unless he totally sucks. <S> Give the reader some credit. <S> They understand how knowledge works

Also, don't cram all the excitement of who and what this character has been into the opening chapter, and then feel like you have to awkwardly skip a bunch of time. When necessary, use flashbacks

I noticed that several already-existing poems used the same highly specific puns and phrases that I used. Is this unintentional plagiarism on my part? A bit of context: Exhibit A) I wrote a poem that had the line "crystalline crystal lines." I googled this phrase, just to see if it was out there, and I saw that it was. I had never read the poem in question, but I still felt like I was in dangerous plagiarism territory, so I ended up using another phrase instead in my poem. B) I wrote a poem in which I had the line "synonym synonym synonym synonym." I googled this phrase, and I saw that it was used several times (in a non-poetic genre, in a scholarly argument and a news article). I also used the phrase "reading the Cliff's Notes of Hamlet" and I saw that someone in an online discussion board used this phrase. I used the phrase "sword-wielding protectors" and this appeared in several hits of fantasy novels and forums. Same with the phrase "kaleidoscope galaxies," and "children of the atom," which is the name of several comic book series. In a poem I mention the movie finding Nemo, and say that "he's a fish who's been separated from his father." I found this quote in a scholarly article about the film. In all these cases, I hadn't read these sources at all, or even heard of them. In all of these cases, I have felt uncomfortably close to plagiarism, and have altered my poems. What do you all think? Am I being oversensitive and paranoid because I'm not the first one to come up with a certain phrase? Or am I doing the right thing? <Q> You're being overly sensitive. <S> Any combination of two words, no matter how original, could be already used elsewhere. <S> That's not plagiarism, that's statistics. <S> The only slightly worrying case is your exhibit A, since it's the most unusual sentence of the ones you cited. <S> But then again, I wouldn't fret about it. <S> They are just three words in a line, even if they are somewhat peculiar, they are three. <S> Exhibit B is not even an exhibit: you just used a rhetorical device of repetition over the word "synonym". <S> It's not plagiarism, <S> its just chance. <S> Consider the famous Macbeth verse: <S> Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, <S> To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. <S> Out, out, brief candle! <S> By your standards, you wouldn't be able to use combinations as: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow (again, a repetition) petty pace <S> recorded time <S> lighted fools <S> dusty deaths brief candle <S> If this seems unreasonable to you, it's because it is. <S> I won't open here the whole debate of originality vs imitation, but that's another thing to consider, and very relevant to the creative process. <S> To wrap it up, while we may follow the idea of being "original" and do things nobody has done before, as humans a lot of our mindframe (and artistic sense) comes from consuming and imitating the works of others. <S> And that, if you want my two cents on the matter, is perfectly fine. <S> Going back to your question: rein in your inner editor, because it's rampaging and censoring your own work. <A> You're being paranoid. <S> New writers are often overly concerned that something they are writing may accidentally resemble something that someone else wrote. <S> I've heard writers fret, on this forum and elsewhere, because, "Oh no, I'm writing a story where the hero is a skilled martial arts expert who fights criminals and who falls in love with the girl he rescues, and now I found another story that also meets that description!" <S> Well news flash, there are thousands of stories out there that match general descriptions like that. <S> A phrase like "sword-wielding protectors" is an obvious description of a certain type of character. <S> Fretting because someone else used the same phrase is like fretting because someone else said a man was "tall and thin". <S> If a phrase is truly original and distinctive, there might be grounds for concern. <S> Like I certainly wouldn't have a character say "we have nothing to fear but fear itself", or "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat, and tears", or "to be or not to be, that is the question", and try to present this as an original formulation. <S> But phrases that are plainly descriptive and not particularly poetic, even if they happen to resemble someone else's words, are not likely to lead anyone to think you're plagiarizing. <A> How to plagiarize: Deliberately steal someone's work. <S> This is always ethically wrong and usually illegal too. <S> Students who do this get expelled or otherwise punished. <S> Authors who do this get legal repercussions and shunned. <S> All deserved. <S> This is not even close to what you are doing. <S> Accidentally steal someone's work. <S> Sometimes when you get an idea and you don't know where you came up with it, it turns out someone else's work was in your brain and it filtered in. <S> This is what you're worried you might be doing and, yes, looking up the phrases is a really good idea. <S> But if you find similar (or even exact) short phrases only in places you're not already familiar with, it's a good sign that you're not stealing by accident. <S> (If you are familiar with the other works you probably didn't steal but accident either, context matters.) <S> Screw up during your learning process. <S> Students sometimes don't understand how to quote or cite things properly. <S> They aren't claiming they wrote XYZ <S> but they write their paper or work in a way that's misleading the reader. <S> As long as nothing gets officially published, this is the sort of thing a good teacher will catch and correct. <S> You are right to be cautious and to research. <S> All of us should do that. <S> But none of your examples are plagiarism. <S> Or even borderline. <S> So keep checking, but consider that you've done your due diligence and go write!

Plagiarism is, most of the time, a deliberate decision; being inspired by others is another thing entirely, and using expressions already used elsewhere is almost unavoidable.

Do I quote the author or artist from a comic? MLA I'm kind of confused on how to quote a scene in a comic/graphic novel. I understand that if you are quoting something that a character said, that you would do the usual (Author's Last name, Page number), but what if you're quoting a scene? Would I then use the artist, author or both? Then for the Works Cited page, would I then use the artists, author or both? [MLA] <Q> I understand that if you are quoting something that a character said, that you would do the usual (Author's Last name, Page number), but what if you're quoting a scene? <S> I'd go with quoting the last names of both Author and Artist and the page number as bottom text (depending on what style you are using for your citations).Something along the lines of " from The amazing animal-man, issue 23, page 2, Smith and Wesson ". <S> If you want to be even more specifc, you could quote the exact panel, but that would work best inside your argument. <S> Let's assume you are discussing the portrayal of grief in comic books, then you could say: "... <S> the topic is central to said issue. <S> In the first panel from the left of page 2, we can see how the artists has ..." <S> I would do the same for the "Works Cited" page. <S> I suppose you could omit the artist last name if you are just interested in the script of a given comic, but that does not seem to be your case and generally I would advise against that. <S> Sometime artists and authors work closely together, no reason to avoid giving attribution to the artist. <A> If you're doing an individual review, you should mention the entire creative team. <S> Writers, co-writers, pencils, pens, colors, letters. <S> Whoever is on the masthead. <S> If you're writing a paper or other work with a bibliography, do the longer versions of citations. <S> You don't necessarily have to list the entire creative team but sometimes that's an easy cut and paste <S> and it's a kindness. <S> Do give full names of whoever you list. <S> If you have a bibliography with the longer citation and you need a shorter version for the text itself, I think it would be fine to use the last name of whoever is first on the masthead or just give the name of the comic. <S> If you're talking about the art, you might want to mention the artist and ditto for the script where you'd want to mention the writer. <S> If you do not have a bibliography and the only reference will be within the text, then list both writer and artist. <A> The MLA doesn't have a definitive statement on this. <S> In an entry about citing speech bubbles from comics <S> they show an example that includes only the author, but the book itself doesn't credit an artist on the cover so that doesn't help. <S> I found several academic sites that give the same MLA guidance for comics, most of which only list the author and are silent about artists. <S> I did, however, find guidance from Western Michigan University that says to include all collaborators (in order of importance of contribution). <S> That page cites this article from an MLA-based comics style guide ; the article is by Allen Ellis, Associate Professor of Library Services at Northern Kentucky University. <S> My conclusion is that MLA always and only requires the author, but it would not be wrong (and I think it is more honest) to include all credited major collaborators. <S> Even if you only use the author for in-text citations, I would use the more-inclusive citation in the bibliography. <A> Let us take a look at how APA does this . <S> Their rule, from their official style blog, is to cite anyone whose contribution is "essential to understanding the content". <S> For example, the illustrations Sir John Tenniel made for Alice in Wonderland are not essential to the text. <S> The book has been published without them and can be read without them. <S> Therefore Tenniel is not mentioned when you city Alice . <S> In a comic book or graphic novel on the other hand, the illustrations are an essential part of the content. <S> Without the contribution of the artist, the comic simply didn't exist. <S> Therefore, what the APA team recommend, is to "cite a [comic book] as you would cite a non-illustrated book with more than one author". <S> As I find their logic convincing, I would recommend the same approach for a citation in MLA format. <S> The MLA Handbook is not explicit about this case, but since it doesn't explicitly forbid to list the artists as second authors, that is what I think best represents the importance of the artists in a comic book. <S> In European comics, usually one artist does it all. <S> In Japanese manga, one mangaka represents his whole team. <S> But in American comics, the roles are clearly divided, and I would list the penciller, inker, colorist, and letterer as authors after the writer. <S> After all, an author is "one that originates or creates something".

But for shorter citations, the general rule is to cite the writer and primary artist, sometimes with full names, sometimes last names.

Can I give a lecture about my book without disclosing my real name? I have a non-fiction book about language learning, entrepreneurship, productivity and personal growth in general. The problem is: I have published this book using a pen name (pseudonym). I would prefer to keep myself anonymous, as the book is filled with personal stories and experiences that I had with other people and even real-world companies and universities. However, I would also like to give some lectures about the topics included in the book, in order to promote it. The question is: can I give a lecture using just my pen name, without revealing my real name and affiliations? Would it be unethical or even forbidden by law? As an alternative, I thought about including myself as a co-author, but this also seems to be unusual. <Q> Yes... <S> but... <S> Yes, of course you can use your pen name. <S> Your audiences need never hear anything different. <S> The issue comes when you need to do things officially. <S> Say, you get booked for a lecture and they set up transportation or a hotel for you. <S> You need ID for those, so they'll need to be in your real name. <S> If it's really a secret, then you'll want to do your own transportation and lodging. <S> The other issue is how to get paid. <S> For that, get yourself a Fictitious Business Name. <S> As Amadeus points out, this is also called "doing business as" (DBA). <S> In the United States your city or county will have the paperwork. <S> You need to research that no one else is using the name, and, if they are, that it's not in a field where yours might interfere. <S> For example, if your pen name is used by an ice cream shop in another state, you're good. <S> But if it's used by another writer, that's potentially a problem (though not a dealbreaker). <S> Then you do the paperwork and pay the fee. <S> In my county, it's $45 for the first business name and $9 for any additional one (register all variations). <S> After that, you are required to publish the notice in a local newspaper. <S> They'll help you with that <S> and it's not expensive, just a classified ad. <S> Your Fictitious Business Name is good for 5 years. <S> Your bank will need to know your real name in addition to the FBN. <S> Otherwise, you probably don't have to tell anyone. <A> Why would it be illegal or unethical to represent yourself as the author of the book you wrote under a different name? <S> I know I would go to a lecture given by John le Carre and never expect him to announce himself as anyone other than le Carre. <S> Taking this example further, I might be disappointed should he take the podium and announce his real name. <S> I want le <S> Carre - <S> oh, sorry, you just get the man who showed up. <S> I would realize that this man was Carre, but never expect him to give his real name. <S> We know so many authors only by their pen names that we expect them to always go by them. <S> Interviews with Piers Anthony were interviews with Piers Anthony. <A> I'm no lawyer, but here is a list of authors who use(d) pseudonyms. <S> Do you suppose any of them did lectures or readings? <S> I'm just guessing, but I bet a lot of them did: <S> Mark Twain, Pablo Neruda, Stan Lee, etc. <A> At least in the USA, you can also file a DBA (Doing Business As) for your pen name, which gives you the right to sign contracts and do other stuff without revealing your real name. <S> IANAL, but businesses use these all the time. <S> It does become a matter of public record, but then somebody would have to go looking for it to learn your real name. <S> You don't have to be a business to get one, though. <A> Check your local laws. <S> My home country, for example, allows you to register an official alias name , which will even be written in your passport so that you can use it on official documents. <S> This is specifically intended for authors, artists and religious purposes. <S> If you do not have this opportunity, then yes you can absolutely give a performance under a pen name. <S> Musicians do it all the time (e.g. Cher is actually named Cherilyn Sarkisian, Alice Cooper is actually named Vincent Damon Furnier, etc.) <S> so I fail to see why an author could not do it, both legally and ethically. <S> Note that a public appearance can easily break your anonymity. <S> Someone takes a picture, posts it on Facebook, and from there it is easy to either compare it with other pictures of you (face recognition and reverse image search are both readily available) or someone simply recognizes you.

None of your marketing materials need give your real name.

How do I know if I should be a writer? I have been writing on and off, without really paying attention to it, almost impulsively, since I was sixteen. It's been mostly therapeutic, for me. I found recently that putting dreams to paper helps flesh them out and give them life. The themes in the dreams are recurring, and have roots, I think, in childhood trauma. The writing helps me parse through the concepts that otherwise lay strewed in my psyche and emotions without my conscious awareness and understanding. My question is this: how do you know if you should pursue writing? I have absolutely no ability to tell stories in person. I want to say ten different things at once. I lose track of where my narratives are going. That said, I do write frequently and impulsively. I do think in bizarre characters and hold dialogues by myself between them. I do think in narratives and themes... Does this mean anything? Can someone with an inability to tell stories ever become a good writer? What does having a compulsion to write without an ability to tell stories leave for the writer to work with, and for the reader to enjoy? How do I know if I should be a writer? Should this just remain a private, therapeutic hobby? <Q> (Nearly) Everyone needs to be a writer Research mathematicians write papers. <S> Corporate workers draft emails and reports. <S> Software engineers write documentation. <S> Basically any educated worker needs to be able to write clearly and proficiently. <S> Very few people write as well as they should, regardless of their occupation. <S> Obviously, you were talking about something else. <S> The world has a glut of writers <S> There are professional fields which have trouble finding enough people interested in the work to get all the work done. <S> Database Admins are in short supply, I hear. <S> On the other hand, there are already more books than anyone can read, and more people who want to write new books than the market could possibly bear. <S> Writing for other's entertainment is more like professional sports than like being a classroom <S> teacher - 20,000,000 people can read the same Harry Potter book, just like 20,000,000 people can watch the same World Series. <S> Only a few can be the stars. <S> Very few people will ever make a living either writing novels or playing baseball. <S> The brutal truth is that the world doesn't need you to write (said the bitter unpublished novelist). <S> If writing is good for you, then write <S> I have been writing on and off, without really paying attention to it, almost impulsively, since I was sixteen. <S> It's been mostly therapeutic, for me. <S> The single most important thing to get better at writing is writing. <S> And if you are already writing - you're ahead of many of the people who imagine they are writers. <S> In my own bitterness, I would discourage others from dreaming big. <S> But you don't have to have unrealistic dreams to work at writing and become better at it. <S> (Those epic poems I'm writing on the train ride to work will likely never get published, but I keep writing them...) <S> Don't quit your day job, though. <S> Even if you could afford to, well... <S> I've always seemed to be a better writer when I had things to do and problems to solve that were unrelated to just working out the next plot twist. <S> If you want to write, let your other life be your fuel. <S> Still, don't quit your day job. <A> One advantage of actually writing is you can edit, revise, add and delete to the story. <S> You don't have to have a whole story in your head, or a plot, to start writing a story and finish it. <S> Read this answer of mine, to a different question <S> The Psychology of Starting a Piece of Writing . <S> I am a discovery writer, that begins stories without a plot and without all the characters, and that answer describes how to begin such a story. <S> You may be a discovery writer, too: The notion of coming up with some character and having a conversation with it: That can be part of a character driven story. <S> Even if the conversation never makes it into the final work, developing a strong and unique character in your mind is the first step in beginning a novel, you have a protagonist, or an antagonist that needs a protagonist to stop his evil plans. <S> The Primary Distinction of a Writer. <S> Stephen King was once asked in a live interview, "What advice do you have for people that would like to write?" <S> His answer: "Write!" <S> However, he went on to say ( <S> and I paraphrase) that most people that ask him that question don't really want to write <S> , they want to have written , so they are getting paid royalty checks, and making movie deals, and being on TV (he waves at the camera) and getting interviewed. <S> So his advice is, if you love writing, then write, and write, and try and try again, until you are good enough to get published. <S> Then keep writing and getting published, not for the money and fame, but because writing is fun. <A> Try Q <S> How do you know if you have what it takes to be { name of profession }? <S> A <S> You do an internship and find out if you like it. <S> So write a novel. <S> Decide <S> After you wrote your first novel, decide whether you want to do that for a living. <S> Keep at it <S> If you want to write for a living, keep at it. <S> Most aspiring writers never get published because they eventually give up. <S> Most writers who keep writing one unpublished novel after another, eventually get published.

But to be a writer, you have to really love to write, and would like to write all day, and you are willing to give up your mornings or evenings and use your entertainment time to write because for you writing is entertainment.

Should I change my method of indicating internal monologue (parenthesis) to something more conventional? I am writing a fantasy novella that ends up using a lot of internal monologues, often mixed with dialogue, descriptions, and other character's monologues. For example, this excerpt from the first chapter Yoshida’s head was aching from where he had been hit. A bright light shone in his eyes, and he clenched them tighter. A cool, damp breeze wafted across his face. The long blades of wild grass rustled as Yoshida sat up, his eyes flying open. A realization dawned on him as he looked at his surroundings. “A forest? Wasn’t I just in my office in Tokyo?” Dumbfounded, he sat for a moment. The forest seemed all too familiar, with its Japanese beech trees and ferns. (It reminds me of when I visited Shirakami-Sanchi, that forest up North) he thought to himself. He looked down at what he was wearing, and saw black cloth, brown leather belts, and chain mail peeking out from under a jerkin. (Wait a minute, is this my Guild Mythos character?) Day to day, Yoshida acted as the head of a small game-testing firm. Having been unsure of himself during his school days, he had taken journalism and game design courses, eventually making a name for himself as someone with a keen eye for quality Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games—MMORPGs. I chose to use parenthesis to be a clear indication for when a character is thinking for a few reasons: Firstly, I originally wrote a lot of the dialogue and internal monologue as new lines. Secondly, I wanted a very clear indication of when a character was thinking. Thirdly, I simply didn't know that italics were a standard. The reason I wonder if I should change it is that I have written the entire book in this style. While I'm not opposed to changing it, I find that the parenthesis work well for what I use them for, and don't obfuscate what I'm trying to convey. Since I have used them throughout the entire novella, would you recommend leaving the parenthesis, or changing over to italics? As a comment, I haven't tried italics yet, but I think they would make the internal monologue a bit harder to differentiate from the normal text, which the only other reason (apart from reducing extra work) I wouldn't want to make the change. <Q> Parentheses have a purpose, which is usually not to indicate internal monologue. <S> They are used as asides and can be a method of breaking the fourth wall. <S> They are generally intended to include information that will clarify a sentence but are rarely sentences themselves. <S> This is an interesting choice, but might not be necessary. <S> I trust the reader to realize when a character is thinking something as opposed to saying it. <S> The long blades of wild grass rustled as Yoshida sat up, his eyes flying open. <S> A realization dawned on him as he looked at his surroundings. <S> A forest? <S> Wasn’t I just in my office in Tokyo? <S> I would understand that the character is thinking that - even without the realization dawning phrase. <S> If you must differentiate the thoughts, italics are clear and the simple font change is not going to signal anything beyond <S> this is different . <A> Yes! <S> Change it! <S> When I saw the title my first thought was, do whatever you want, as long as it works. <S> Then I read the question... <S> and...it doesn't work. <S> It's very distracting. <S> If you use italics, you can take out the "he thought to himself" bits, which are generally clutter. <S> Or you can do it in unmarked text in certain cases. <S> Given that the internal thoughts are in first person and the narration is in third person, I would encourage you to use italics. <S> No markup needs a bit more finesse. <A> What you choose is a question of personal style. <S> Personally, I find the parentheses confusing. <A> You do this in italics, without quote marks, usually as a new paragraph (like dialogue). <S> It reminds me of when I visited Shirakami-Sanchi, that forest up North. <S> If we see the thoughts of more than one person, attribute it like dialogue, but not in italics. <S> It reminds me of when I visited Shirakami-Sanchi, that forest up North, he thought. <S> "He thought to himself" is redundant, unless you have demonstrated that he is telepathic and can choose to think to somebody else.

Parentheses will signal something other than you intend and could be distracting. The standard is to not mark up internal monologue because internal monologue is readily apparent by first person pronouns and thought-verbs within the narator's passages, but many contemporary novels, especially in the Young Adult segment, use italics to signify it.

How do I stay motivated while planning a series of novels? I've been working on a fantasy series for the past few years. When I first started, I wrote my first draft (for the first book) in one go without any planning at all. Even though I enjoyed myself, once I was done I felt like the book wasn't good enough and could have benefited from planning. I let the story marinate in my head for a few years, and ended up getting a bunch of new ideas that meant the first draft would have to change completely (basically, only the genre and characters remained the same). But I should add that, though I felt I wasted my time writing the first draft, it was beneficial because I got to know the characters, and I don't think I would have reached this point if I had started planning from the beginning, without having done any writing. When I picked up the story again I decided to focus more on planning and less on writing (as I didn't want to spend time writing material that could become outdated when I got better ideas). However, I still spend time writing when I am inspired by a scene and feel like I absolutely have to get it out on paper (which happens often). So right now, my current system is to focus on planning (in terms of story arcs and characters arcs) and only write when inspired. The problem is: writing is fun, but planning gets boring after a while, unless I jotdown a few scenes in the process the ideas I come up with while planning seem good at first, but Isometimes have much better ideas when writing, or when I am inspiredon the fly. The ideas I came up with while planning seem predictablein comparison. I don't want to stop planning because I jump around a lot and write scenes from different books in the series, and things get really confusing. Also, there are some things I can do while planning that are much harder to do while writing, such as: figuring out the order of events which conflicts happen in what order how the events of each novel flow together when characters should be introduced how character relationships progress how characters develop My main question is: how do I stay engaged while planning, and how do I strike a balance between planning and writing while still making meaningful progress? <Q> You are learning to write. <S> Part of learning is to understand that it may be time to abandon a project and move on to the next one. <S> It is good if you finish a project, but only if you chose a project that is manageable at your current level of experience as a writer. <S> Usually, when you start out as a writer, it is a good idea to begin by writing a few short narratives, then a few longer narratives, then a few novels, and then your first series. <S> What you did is attempt a marathon without ever having run before. <S> It is quite likely that you are now at the point where you find out that you have overestimated your skill and stamina. <S> So it might be prudent to stop working on this project, put it in a drawer, and write something shorter first. <S> And then, when you have written a few novels, and the current project still lingers in your mind, return to it and write it with the mastery you have then achieved. <A> You say that the ideas you come up with while writing are much better than the ones you planned. <S> Sounds like you might be a discovery writer. <S> I have four novels still in the work <S> is progress stage but <S> they - if I do complete them - worst case served as practice. <S> Best case, I have two high concept fantasy novels waiting to be finished. <S> Even my juvenilia has a purpose and while they will never see the light of day, they were fun to write and taught me. <S> My current work has no relation to them in style or genre. <S> I am writing a spy thriller that began as a question. <S> I spent two months creating the characters of the brother and sister, getting their relationship just so. <S> Finding their names and getting to know them before writing that first sentence. <S> Since joining this forum I have learned that I am a discovery writer. <S> My characters go about their lives, meet others and have adventures - often surprising me. <S> I have a general idea of the arc of the series, but the way the characters interact drive the story. <S> Choosing to write the entire series scene by scene but not in order is an interesting choice. <S> If that is your process, that is your process, but it might make flow more difficult to achieve. <S> Worry a bit less about planning and devote more time to writing. <S> You might find errors or, as I have done on occasion, realized that character x needs a tweak and go back, make a few changes and go on. <A> The thing you may need to realise is there's planning <S> and there's planning. <S> You could plan everything to the minutest detail and have a long arc across all of your books (much like Harry Potter) but each book has to be separate in its own way, otherwise people will wonder why it wasn't simply released as one book. <S> Plus, it's all very well meticulously planning out the entire series of books <S> but what happens if, midway through book 2, you realise that you've got to go off in a different direction and the plans for rest of the books are useless? <S> Every book could be planned in as little as one line or even a blurb. <S> If we were to use film as an example, looking at the original Star Wars trilogy, you have "A New Hope", " <S> The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi". <S> Each title is a key, small example of what happens in each film and is enough to build a story around without getting bogged down in the details of it. <S> There's nothing wrong with doing both your writing at the same time. <S> You're writing a chapter and something happens which gives you another idea of what could happen in the future, whether in the same book or a different one so you stop and sketch out what happens later. <S> And likewise, you could be planning and realise you've got a great idea for something to happen right now and jump straight into writing. <A> What you describe is a normal part of plotting and rewriting. <S> I use Scrivener , first as an index card board to slide the major plot points around, then flesh-out the details similar to Snowflake – I just call it the index card method <S> (but I am not selling a book or software so there might be a cleverer name for it). <S> Scrivener is easy to split a file in-line, so as the outline becomes chapters and chapters become scenes the whole project can grow organically. <S> It still has the index card metaphor where entire blocks of scenes can be re-arranged by dragging the files in the hierarchy. <S> It's also great for adding a quick note to an earlier scene to include Chekov's gun , without interrupting the inspiration flow. <S> Ultimately you want to keep the organization of plotting with the spontaneity of discovery writing. <S> That requires good editing tools that let you work on the larger structure down to the granular scene.

Just stay organized so your out-of-order inspiration sessions and random plot notes can be accessed and edited quickly. Periodically read sections to check for flow and keep going. Ideas almost always improve if you return later and spot the clichés that need to be subverted. The Snowflake Method is a process where a large narrative is constructed by first sketching-in the broad themes and then expanding them into more detailed versions, again and again until you have the novel.

A Market For Long Narrative Poetry? In spirit I have struggled long to find A manner fit to hold my roiling thoughts; A way to slowly pour them to a mold - And happily that manner has been found. A writer long, inclined to stories long And intricate, my poetry is not Of brief and shining moments, gilded-gold; But narrative, where stanzas many throng. Though novels I did once compose, no more. And even then, I timidly did not Successful win that phantom, promised gold - A book deal, and great fame forevermore. An ugly begger, heiress lost and found - Or else a tragedy of ages lost Where myth and superstition mix. All told, So many thousand words each poem crowds. Pray, reader, can you tell me where to look? What market is there? Fantasy but not in prose - my hope of publishing grown cold. Say, where to peddle such a verse-filled book? <Q> Whenever I go to a bookstore, they either do not have any poetry books at all, or only a very small selection of classics shelved alongside Homer and Shakespeare. <S> You'll have to research them. <S> But none of these publish epic poetry. <S> Your best approach would be a two-step strategy: <S> Find the publishers that publish contemporary poetry (your format) or fantasy (your content) and submit. <S> Maybe one of them will be interested. <S> If none of them want your work, self-publish. <S> Be prepared for a tremendous marketing effort or be conent with a handful of readers. <A> A common market for shorter pieces is anthologies. <S> You didn't give a length but "long poetry" is probably still not novel length. <S> Anthologies tend to have themes based on the subject of the work or the communities the author belongs to, or both. <S> For example: Science fiction stories by Iraqis Steampunk by Southeast Asian writers Science Fiction stories by people of color, with disabilities, etc <S> These are simply examples of anthologies I've read and liked. <S> There are countless more. <S> While science fiction and fantasy anthologies are common, there are plenty that don't have that theme. <S> Most do not have requirements that the author belong to a particular community either. <S> Though if you do belong to a particular community of any kind, do some searches. <S> This includes living in a particular city. <S> Look at theme broadly. <S> For example, if Goblin Market was just written and the author was trying to publish it, it could belong with stories of fantasy, fairy tale, horror, family ties, women, sisterly love, etc. <S> Consider graphic novel format. <S> Many anthologies are for graphic novel/comic book creators. <S> You might consider partnering with an artist and submitting to anthologies using a creative illustrative style that doesn't have to look anything like most graphic novels. <S> If your poem is long enough (or if you have more than one that would work together), an illustrated book that is all your own might catch the eye of publishers more than a book of an epic poem. <S> I can imagine, for example, pages with long but narrow text down the middle and pictures and patterns in the very large margins. <S> Or pictures breaking up each stanza (or set of stanzas). <S> Or each page of text side by side with a full page illustration. <S> If you go this route, take your time finding the right artist and only get one, maybe two, sample pages to show publishers. <S> Art is expensive! <S> Be creative! <S> Epic poetry isn't a big seller unless it's older works for school children, and even then... <S> So the more you can position your work as part of other markets, the more successful you'll be. <S> Good luck! <A> A most unwelcome answer 'Tis too late, said one. <S> Not here, said another. <S> Then silence, or rather Mystery not yet undone. <S> There is an unspoken thought,an obvious sky-ridden star: absolute, earnest by far. <S> 'Tis <S> the answer you sought:of words twisted and obscure,many of which <S> but manure,the world is full in surplus. <S> If you write for pleasure,Then yours is the treasure: <S> enjoy, and don't bother us. <A> I know this is somewhat late <S> but I thought I might share my experience with you. <S> It is just under 4,000 words and <S> 30 (A5) pages long. <S> It is written in quatrain form. <S> It is the shortest of my long, narrative poems - the others are up to 40,000 words. <S> I am afraid that poetry rarely sells (according to what I have been told and read) and hardly ever makes a profit, which may explain why publishers shy away from it and seem to consider only established poets if an at all. <S> My view is that if a good, long narrative poem that relates an engaging tale, could be published, with appropriate artwork, it would probably sell better than some novellas or novels. <S> Until then, keep trying. <S> Good luck. <S> HMcG

I have just had a long, narrative poem accepted for publication in Piker Press. When you search "market for poetry" in your favourite search engine, you'll find a couple of webpages that list venues that pay for short poems, mostly periodicals such as Christian Science Monitor or Slice .

Different methods of incorporating Korean into English text I have a Korean character in the novel I'm working on, and it is fairly important to the plot that she has some dialogue in Korean. Korean isn't a language where you can say what you see, if you understand what I mean. I'm undecided between a few approaches: Completely leave out the Korean and just write her dialogue in English (although it might affect the scene slightly). Her eyes seemed to carry the same playful light that had emblazoned her smile. "Do you really want this?" The woman asked in a light-hearted tone. It was a question the would possibly change the latter's life depending on his answer. Write the dialogue in Hangul and then write it in English. e.g.: Her eyes seemed to carry the same playful light that had emblazoned her smile. "너 정말 이걸 원해?" The woman asked in a light-hearted tone Do you really want this? It was a question the would possibly change the latter's life depending on his answer. Write a Romanized version of the language. This could possibly come off as confusing or incorrect, or maybe offensive? e.g.: Her eyes seemed to carry the same playful light that had emblazoned her smile "Neo Cheongmal igeol wonhae?" The woman asked in a light-hearted tone. It was a question the would possibly change the latter's life depending on his answer. The character's dialogue contributes to the plot in a few scenes. What are the advantages of these different approaches? <Q> The answer will depend on your narrative view. <S> Do you write from an omnisicent viewpoint or from the limited view of one of your characters? <S> Omniscient <S> narrative viewpoint: <S> You want the reader to understand what the other characters cannot understand. <S> a. Paraphrase <S> the dialogue in text, e.g. Jacky told Heather in Korean that she wanted to eat. <S> Heather only looked at her in confusion. <S> "What did you say?" <S> Here, only English dialogue is represented as direct speech. <S> b. Translate <S> the dialoge but label the language: "Do you have something to eat?" <S> Jacky asked Heather in Korean. <S> Heather only looked at her in confusion. <S> " <S> What?" <S> she asked in English. <S> Here, all dialogue is represented as direct speech, with the foreign dialogue translated into English. <S> All dialogue must be labelled with the respective language. <S> Limited <S> narrative viewpoint: <S> You don't want the readers to understand. <S> Write a Latin transliteration of the Korean, e.g. "naneun baegopeuda," Jacky said. <S> Heather only stared. <S> Represent all spoken languages in the writing system of your readers. <S> Do not write Korean letters in a text written in Latin letters. <S> By writing in Latin letters, you give your readers an approximation of hearing Korean without understanding it: they can read the Latin transliteration, but won't understand, just like the other characters. <S> Represent all written languages in their own writing system. <S> For example, if your characters encouter a book in Korean or read Korean street signs, represent them in Korean writing. <S> They don't hear that text but see it, so show the reader what your characters see (or describe it, e.g. strange circular characters ). <S> James Clavell's novel Shogun shows very nicely how the protagonist learns a foreign lanugage, and dialogue shifts from Latin transliteration (2.) <S> to translation (1.b.) as he begins to understand. <A> Personal preference, don't write the Hangul. <S> Since I can't read the characters themselves, it takes me out of the story. <S> I do like the inclusion of the Korean words in Anglicized lettering, but that's a stylistic point. <S> In either case, the real work is being done by the translation. <S> Do you really want this? <S> It's clearly translated. <S> In general, fewer words is better. <S> If you're writing a hundred-thousand word book, don't waste any of them. <S> Coy playfulness lit her eyes and emblazoned her smile. " <S> Neo Cheongmal igeol wonhae? <S> " <S> The words lilted, light-hearted. <S> You really want this? <S> His answer might change his life. <A> From a reader's perspective: When I come across words I don't understand I scan ahead to the words I know. <S> So I'd actually prefer the Korean stuff to be in a distinct alphabet. <S> That would make it easier to skip ahead quickly to the English. <S> Transliterating makes the Korean dialogue look like English words.

If the character understands the words, then it's fine to just italicize, or even to simply skip the quotes.

How best to recover from catastrophic text loss? This morning I had an accidental select all delete followed by auto save, which prevented me from just hitting undo. My novel became an empty file. I use MS Word. I had emailed a copy of it a few weeks ago, so was able to retrieve 628 pages. I must now reconstruct just over one hundred pages with a dozen plot points. I would like to come as close to the original as possible, but know most will differ. I have written each major plot point on a separate line followed by the word bookmark so I can work on them out of sequence and flesh them out properly. I use the word bookmark as a bookmark. Right now it is looking like: Shooting at recital bookmark Secondary protagonist gets shot bookmark Flight through the woods bookmark Tertiary protagonist tries to help bookmark Etc. Is there a better method of reconstructing prose? Or should I embrace the void and just write it completely differently? <Q> Forget your story for a moment and revel in how this loss makes you feel. <S> A loss of treasured words is a pain which every writer eventually encounters. <S> It is agony, but it is also an opportunity. <S> In this moment, while sadness, anger and self-reproach are burning within you, put pen to paper and capture how you feel. <S> Use first person perspective and go deep. <S> When the fires cool, look over what you've created and compare it to your regular style. <S> There will be moments in future stories, when you want to make your readers feel like you feel right now. <S> This is your opportunity to learn how to do it. <S> Now back to your question... Unless you normally write against a detailed outline, I would discourage using a "new-to-you" outlining technique to give your rewrite efforts structure. <S> Plotting/ <S> Outlining writers develop a specific set of writing skills which help them follow pre-existing writing plans. <S> Free-form writers develop an equal yet different set of skills. <S> If outlines are not part of your normal way of writing, then trying to use them now, while you are upset over the lost work, could seriously disrupt your writing flow and diminish (or even jeopardize) the final work. <S> You have successfully created 700+ pages using your current preferred writing techniques. <S> Whatever those techniques are, they are working for you. <S> Just Keep using them. <S> Read through the last few pages of your most recent backup, to remind yourself of where you need to pick up the story. <S> Then get back to writing from that plot point. <S> Where you go from there may not be identical to what you created earlier, but there is no reason to believe it will suffer from the rewriting. <S> In all likelihood, your new words will affect the story deeply, enriching and enhancing it in currently unexpected ways. <S> There is nothing wrong with rewriting a hundred pages. <S> That is an event which happens regularly during the edit phase of any novel's gestation. <S> Replacing words is part of what we do. <S> New words are always waiting to join the page. <S> Have faith in them, that they will serve your story as well as their fallen comrades did before. <S> Keep Writing! <A> The French Revolution: A History , by Thomas Carlyle, was a completed draft (at least, volume 1 was) when his friend's maid mistakenly burned the manuscript. <S> Carlyle completely rewrote the book. <S> It (the re-written book) made his reputation. <S> Okay, so maybe Carlyle isn't as well known as he was 100 years ago, but the lesson stands. <S> You've figured a bunch out, about action, characters, plotting... <S> Now just [re]write! <S> However you rewrite ( <S> following an outline of what was lost, or asking yourself it there's a better direction to take the story in), make this an opportunity to make your creation even richer. <A> There are two approaches to revision: revising <S> , i.e. "polishing" what you have written rewriting, i.e. putting what you have written away and writing your story from scratch a second time <S> One American popular fiction writer whose name <S> I forget claimed in his book on how to write novels that on average he rewrote each of his novels seven times. <S> His mantra was: Writing is rewriting <S> So this is your chance to try this approach. <A> There is a French expression saying that when you fall from a horse, you'd better get back on it soon. <S> Because after some time you may fear of what will happen if you mount the horse again, and may not do it anymore ; Indeed, if you let time happening, you will also feel like a burden to begin 100 pages behind. <S> Jump on writing while it's still fresh in your mind. <S> And the most important in this event is not that you lost 100 pages, but what will you do to not let this happen again? <S> Program <S> some automatic backup, put reminders to copy your work in your Dropbox, etc. <A> This is a non-literary, non-writing answer. <S> If you really want to recover the original, do as little as possible on your computer, and use what activity you do perform to download a file recovery tool. <S> When you delete a file in MS-DOS, the only thing that happens is that the file name in the directory replaces the first character with a special, non-printable character. <S> That's it. <S> All subsequent file writes look in the directory and determine that the file has been deleted, so they use that disk space as they wish. <S> How long it will take until this happens is a much more complicated subject. <S> And yeah, in the future you should make backups regularly. <S> No matter how much of a pain in the butt it seems.

Until another file overwrites the original, it is perfectly recoverable. Or, if you're utterly depressed over the loss, you could set aside that work, write something else, and maybe come back to your current project later. Write from the gut. If you have the energy to rewrite, it's quite possible that your second version of the lost text will be better.

Are paragraph spaces used for emphasis? I am writing a story and I have these 3 sentences that elaborate on the ending of a first page. This way the reader will continue to read my story. My question is, am I allowed to place paragraph spacing in between these sentences to create spacing? Are there any other stories that do so? Is it correct or will it be a waste of space? By spaces, I mean the following. Sentence 1....(Space here)Sentence 2...(Space here)Sentence 3....(Space here) <Q> Offsetting a single sentence as it's own paragraph is one way to emphasize that sentence or idea, and yes, you will see this done in the books you read. <S> It is a more common device in some genres and age ranges than others. <S> Keep in mind that some writers, especially novices, use this device more heavily than maybe they should. <S> Too much becomes exhausting to read, as though the author is saying "This is important!" <S> "This too!" <S> And this!" <S> Think of it like italics. <S> You could italicize a word in every sentence for emphasis. <S> Hopefully you agree this would be a bad idea, and that it would become visually annoying after about three instances. <S> You'd probably even scan ahead and get the idea that the author really abused italics. <S> Same with offsetting single sentences. <S> Use the tool sparingly. <S> ^^See what I did there? <S> That sentence could have been included in the previous paragraph. <S> It carries more oomph by being offset. <S> But now try to imagine every sentence in this answer as having its own paragraph. <S> This page would appear to have about fifteen paragraphs--each a single sentence--and you'd start to wonder if I was soft in the head. <S> (Perhaps concluding sentences.) <A> "Am I allowed ..." No. <S> If you do this, the Writing Police will come to your house, break down the door, and arrest you. <S> Seriously, what do you mean by "am I allowed"? <S> Who is going to stop you and how? <S> The real question is, "Is this a good idea?" <S> There appear to be two issues here <S> : 1. <S> Should you put space between paragraphs? <S> And 2. <S> Should you make a sentence its own paragraph for emphasis. <S> The answer to #1 is a matter of formatting style. <S> You have to do SOMETHING to show where new paragraphs begin. <S> Sometimes people put space between paragraphs to separate them. <S> Sometimes people indent the first line of each paragraph. <S> Occasionally people put the paragraph symbol, ¶. <S> The first two methods are used routinely and are understand by pretty much anybody who can read English, and are pretty much interchangeable. <S> The only time it matters is if there is some other sort of formatting you are using that makes one or the other difficult to read. <S> Like if you want to use some blank space to show breaks between sections, then also using it to separate paragraphs could make it unclear whether any given break is a section break or a paragraph break. <S> As to #2, emphasis, like any technique for emphasis, you should use this sparingly. <S> If you are speaking quietly and suddenly you shout, it gets the listeners attention and lets them know that what you said so loudly is important or exciting (at least to you). <S> But if you shout constantly, it's just annoying. <A> The convention <S> In print <S> In print, paragraphs that are part of the same scene are set off of each other by paragraphs <S> breaks alone. <S> There is no extra white space between paragraphs:             <S> In print, if there is additional white space between paragraphs, that white space means that the next paragraph belongs to another scene:            Online <S> Online, <S> all paragraphs are (or should be) separated by additional white space , as they are on this site, because that increases readability on computer monitors. <S> The following image shows that paragraphs on this site are not separated by multiple line breaks and an empty line, but only by a large margin: <S> Deviation from convention <S> But it is good to understand what the convention is and to deviate from it consciously. <S> If you know what white space between pagagraphs means conventionally, you can use this effect. <S> For example, if you offset a single sentence from a preceding paragraph with additional whitespace in print, the reader will expect a change in time, place, or protagonist. <S> If none of these happen, that is, if the offset paragraph clearly continues the situation from the preceding paragraph, the offset will cause the reader to search for an explanation for its unconventional placement. <S> What explanation the reader finds, lies outside of your influence . <S> That is the allure of creative writing: that everyone can read into it what they want. <S> But be careful! <S> If you deviate from convention once in one novel, the reader will likely find this intriguing. <S> But if you disregard convention completely, the effect may be confusing and unattractive. <A> It sounds like you want to make these 3 sentences memorable. <S> You could end chapter 1 with those 3 sentences, with only slight emphasis like a paragraph break. <S> Then put those 3 sentences at the top of chapter 2, possibly in quotation marks. <S> After all, you are quoting from the previous chapter. <S> Other chapters could have nothing, or each one could have a quote from the previous chapter. <S> The quote technique would be like a running start for each chapter.

So, the answer to your question is yes, but please read some of your favorite books to get a feel for how often to do this, and with which types of sentences. Of course you can deviate from convention in your writing.

Library of Congress filing: answering "intended for children or young adults" I'm going to submit a request for a Library of Congress Preassigned Control Number (PCN). One of the questions on the form is: Is this title intended for children or young adults? Because of the "or", I assume the book doesn't have to be appropriate for both children and young adults. My answer would be obvious if the field were phrased as "acceptable for" or "intended primarily for". Unfortunately, I'm unsure whether "intended for" means the title is: for members of this audience and other audiences only for members of this audience (To illustrate usage #1, consider the sentence, "Is exercise intended for children or young adults?" It is; to say "Exercise is not intended for children or young adults" would be false.) I wrote the novel for general audiences and never even considered the possibility of YA readers. But one of my beta readers, who teaches middle-school English, assumed it was intended for YA readers of roughly 14+. So if #1 is the right interpretation, I think that applies to my book. But if it's #2, the answer is absolutely "no" since I didn't write it primarily with young adults in mind. To be clear: I'm not asking about the meaning of the word "intend", or for interpretations of the form by laypeople like me. I'm hoping that someone with working knowledge can tell me the best answer for this entry field—based on the way that librarians, teachers, or others actually use this information. If you have working knowledge, please mention that in your answer for added weight. Thanks! <Q> Quoting your quote: <S> In addition to regular Library of Congress cataloging treatment, juvenile titles receive summaries. <S> The summaries are used by children’s librarians and teachers in selecting materials for classroom use and by young library patrons. <S> Special subject headings are also provided for use in children’s library catalogs. <S> If you want those things done in the LOC system for your book, answer yes. <S> If you don't want that, answer no. <S> Since those are the only consequences to your answer to the question, that's all you really have to consider. <A> (This answer was written during the first iteration of the question. <S> The author's changes invalidate much of my answer. <S> My conclusion stands: this is not a juvenile book, but I could only base it on the information the author provided at the time. <S> I leave it as is as because it still applies to the general question asked, even if the details have changed.) <S> This is not a juvenile book. <S> Would you call Jane Austen's novels juvenile fiction simply because they're completely appropriate for the young adult market? <S> Would you classify farming manuals as kids' books because there's nothing in there a child <S> shouldn't read? <S> Then you say "My book is appropriate for some young adults (around 14 and up)." <S> I hear you that you would love the extra summaries and other marketing that a juvenile book listing provides, but that's not a reason to misclassify your book. <S> Based on what you're saying, your book would not even qualify as a teen book (even if some teens can read it and might even enjoy it). <S> But here the qualification is that the book is for children 15 and under, which isn't even most teens. <S> So, no, don't try to circumvent the system. <S> Find other ways to market. <A> When you wrote your book, did you write it specifically for readers younger than 15? <S> Is your target audience children? <S> Did you intend to write for children? <S> If yes, yes. <S> If no, no. <A> Because of the "or", I assume the book doesn't have to be appropriate for both children and young adults. <S> Correct. <S> The Library of Congress first lumps things into two big groups based on whether it's appropriate for anyone of any age up to and including high school, and that's what they're asking you here. <S> Later on, they will sub-categorize the work further ( see this page ), <S> but you don't have to worry about that here. <S> All the form is asking you is whether the work's primary audience is adults or sub-adults. <S> The intital concern is identifying material that isn't appropriate for younger age groups, so that an elementary school library doesn't end up with 50 Shades of Gray. <S> (Another way to read the question would be: "Did you write this book intending it to be read by people who haven't reached adulthood yet?") <S> As for how this information is used by interested parties, it's really just there to help them find what they may be looking for, or know at a glance what they're looking at. <S> Different institutions/educators/etc. use it in different ways at different times depending on their needs. <S> It's simply meant to facilitate searching and categorization. <S> Besides, your response isn't set down in stone. <S> What if someone mistakenly answered the question incorrectly, or the reviewers simply don't agree with your classification? <S> So don't stress. <S> Whatever you decide to answer here won't cause drastic, irreparable consequences.

If your book is such that it would be inappropriate for most (or even some) teenagers, then it's definitely not aimed at the young adult market. Most non-fiction and a large number of fiction books geared for adults are appropriate for teens.

Character is onscreen for three seconds I have a character Joe who leads the task force hunting my MC. His reputation is known to the MC and he is well aware of how effective he is. Joe is also a good friend of another character, Fred, and it is decided to try and tranquilize him, instead of kill him, out of respect both to his skills and for the mutual friend, Fred. In this scene, I had Joe lead his men into the community hall and be shot by a well-prepared sniper from a catwalk, who darts him. Joe essentially steps across the threshold, gets shot, looks at the dart, looks up at the catwalk and points, losing consciousness. Temporarily sidelined. Joe is later referred to by his lieutenant, Sam, and becomes an incentive for the members of the task force who have captured the MC to consider a trade. Sam comes to wonder what color his hat is when they came to eliminate him and were met by non-lethal force. Joe is taken hostage, becoming a bargaining chip. In my original version, the first full scene with this character is a proof-of-life Skype chat where he is delighted the plan worked and livid that his men might throw it all away just to save him. They would have to start over, chasing him again. They have him and now they are thinking of a trade? Preposterous. I can give Joe a bit more time before he is darted and temporarily sidelined. Both are clear, but I feel the original has more tension and is more intriguing. Would giving this character more screen time increase tension or reduce it? <Q> What I do in similar cases is write both variants – you will very likely have a clear feeling for which variant works best. <A> I think adding more text about an anonymous and irrelevant character would destroy any tension you may have built. <S> You have some anonymous character, who is taken prisoner in the event that MC's party need a bargaining chip. <S> This anonymous character is thus defined enough from the perspective of the story, and as long as it does not serve any other purpose in the plot, it could be temporarily replaced by a bag of potatoes as a placeholder. <S> However, there is another place where you can add excellent tension. <S> In fact, you have the conflict within the MC's party on whether to kidnap Bag-of-Potatoes or to kill it. <S> You can write down the heated argument in favor of either solution, and even use the grudge that may linger afterwards to create some cracks in the unity of the party. <A> I think you're fine. <S> In a novel, mentioning a character is very much like showing a character. <S> In the sense of how this character embeds himself in the reader's mind. <S> Obviously, it matters <S> how you mention/show a character, but not as much if it's the narrator describing them vs another character describing them. <S> In a movie, seeing is everything. <S> You say "screenplay" even though you've talked about this work before as a novel. <S> So in the off chance you meant screenplay literally (or as contrast)... <S> Then you can have him in the background in multiple scenes. <S> Once the viewer knows to watch for him, s/he'll see him at every turn. <S> This will cement his importance to your audience. <S> This is basically what you're doing in a novel too. <S> Those frequent mentions are building him up in a way such that, when he's in trouble, your readers will care. <S> The difference is that there are no visuals in a novel (usually) beyond what is inside the reader's head. <S> How you get the character inside the reader's head is not as important as the fact that he's there.

In the case of a movie, you'd want to establish the character early, so the viewer recognizes him and knows he's important to watch.

How to write in a more conversational tone? I come from an academic background. Writing has always been an easy thing to me, but almost all of my practice outside of poetry has been in academic writing. I'll find myself writing in the way that I think, with all of the hedges for the sake of completeness, and realize that what I've written would be very understandable, but would not give you the impression that I'm talking to you . Perhaps I'm giving myself a harder time than I need to, but I feel that it is a worthy rebuke of my writing. Edit: I write philosophical non-fiction papers on all sorts of things like religion, culture, politics, etc. <Q> Clarity in communication is the goal, which you say you achieve. <S> As long as your works are easily understood by your target audience, you should be fine. <S> If you wish to make your work appeal to a wider audience than those who usually read philosophical works, Cyn has good advice. <S> Reading it aloud will expose any unnatural or stilted sections and make them easier to adapt. <S> Precision of language is vital in philosophy. <S> People tend to speak - and write - differently depending on the audience they wish to reach. <S> A person can speak to a colleague as a peer, using jargon and expecting comprehension, but would address a stranger differently. <S> Our diction changes with our needs, becoming more general as our net widens. <S> Do you wish to reach a large readership who might never have given philosophy much thought and ease them into the fold? <S> Is your work intended for the more or less initiated? <A> Get thee to a writer's group! <S> Find yourself a group that meets in person (or by video or phone, if you must). <S> Where you take turns reading your work out loud to each other. <S> If that doesn't come together, find friends or family willing to be your audience. <S> Still can't swing it? <S> read the work out loud to yourself. <S> The very act of reading out loud will expose anything stilted or off. <S> This goes a long way, even if no one else hears it. <S> The act of reading to someone and getting feedback will tell you if your efforts to pull the reader/audience in are working. <S> It's not perfect. <S> Sometimes things work well in print but not out loud. <S> And sometimes things sound great out loud but just don't come together in print. <S> This is a technique that's essential for dialogue, but also works for a wide variety of genres, both fiction and nonfiction. <A> Balance between precision and simplicity That may be suggesting a cardinal sin in philosophical writing, but <S> I'm hopeful you will understand, because you said something about writing poetry. <S> In the same way that metre and rhyming in poetry forces you to have a more complex relationship with natural grammar than you might otherwise have, just so, a "conversational tone", or any other improvement to textual digestibility, will necessarily have an impact on how you present your arguments. <S> As an exercise, try taking a page of your writing, with all of your "hedging" and context and examples. <S> (You illustrate with examples, right?) <S> Now try writing the same thing in a quarter of a page or less. <S> And keep the illustrative examples. <S> Something has to be left out, or at least folded in more tightly. <S> Good poetry sounds more natural after a great deal of folding and polishing of the thoughts and language; this is true of other writing as well. <S> As a natural windbag and hedger, I've had a front row seat observing how people get lost in my digressions into qualifying what I'm trying to say. <S> More words can actually communicate less, if you can't hold someone's attention. <S> I'm not saying that all digressions are bad; "color", and organic presentation, and circling back to tie things together, are all wonderful and persuasive techniques in writing. <S> (That might even be the real answer you're looking for.) <S> But remember that, unlike your imaginary audience, a real audience will have a limited amount of patience as they're waiting for you to get to the point. <S> Make sure your writing is clear and simple enough, and gets to a point.

It can even be good to imagine a person who you're explaining something to - and to write down your arguments or points as if you were walking that particular person through your reasoning. Be aware of the audience you wish to reach and see what effect that has on your style. One exercise you can try is to imagine a friend of yours who is unfamiliar with the field and that you are writing for that one person.

Should I change from past to present tense to state a fact that continues into the present and is unyielding? Within narration in past tense, should a statement of a universally true fact be in past tense or in present tense? For example, in the short text: It was late afternoon in Zubrin. The air was perfect and the breeze was light. The sky glowed with the brilliance of Saturn's exotic face, a face that hung almost directly overhead and moved very little. This was due to the fact that, like Earth's moon, Titan's rotation is synchronous in its orbit. One side always faces the planet. It was a spectacular sight when the climate shield was high. Is "is synchronous" correct, or should it be "was synchronous"? And then, "one side always faces" or "one side always faced" the planet. <Q> General truths, such as "the earth is round" should be in present tense. <S> Applying the past tense to such a statement would imply that the statement is not universally true, or might no longer be true. <S> Compare: <S> Winter is cold. <S> A general statement about the nature of winter, to: <S> That winter was cold. <S> Implication being that other winters might not have been equally cold. <S> to: <S> It was winter, and thus - cold. <S> Which implies that winters are cold, but now might not be winter. <S> If you wrote "Earth was round", I would understand that either Earth might no longer exist, or it might no longer be round. <A> Yes, if the narrator is in the present telling a story about the past. <S> The narrative is telling a story about something that has already happened. <S> So it's in past tense. <S> But then the narrative pulls you, the reader, aside to tell you something about the setting. <S> And you know in this case it's just for the reader, because someone who lives in the Saturn system wouldn't know enough about the Earth system to use it as the base reference. <S> Using present tense is correct because the moons still exist, even though the story is over. <S> If the narrator is less personable and just simply describing, then using past tense is correct. <S> Frankly, either one will work. <S> It's just a matter of how you are framing the story. <A> I think this is more of a stylistic choice. <S> Personally I disagree with Galastel and would keep consistency of tense. <S> The switch to present seems like the narrator is suddenly giving me a lecture rather than explaining a scene. <S> If you think this passage This was due to the fact that, like Earth's moon, Titan's rotation was synchronous in its orbit. <S> One side always faced the planet. <S> sounds awkward <S> , it's probably because it's too wordy and exposition <S> -y rather than a tense issue. <S> You could probably just cut it. <S> This It was late afternoon in Zubrin. <S> The air was perfect and the breeze was light. <S> The sky glowed with the brilliance of Saturn's exotic face, a face that hung almost directly overhead and moved very little. <S> It was a spectacular sight when the climate shield was high. <S> sounds perfectly fine to me. <S> Does the reader really need to know about Titan's synchronous orbit to appreciate the scene? <S> (Also, strictly speaking, no statement is universally true. <S> There will come a time when Titan's orbit stops being synchronous. <S> Your hypothetical readers then would find your present tense description of Titan rather jarring.) <A> Elizabeth here. <S> Your first contribution and my first too. <S> Hope this helps. <S> You begin by describing a scene then in the middle a switch to explaining to the reader why and then back to describing. <S> Tense shifts back and forth. <S> The "is synchronous <S> " is correct. <S> Yes the rotation is synchronous. <S> Yes, one side of the moon always faces the planet. <S> The tense shift is understandable and easily fixed. <S> The two sentences at issue don't belong in the paragraph. <S> Take the two sentences out of the paragraph and use them to start the next paragraph. <S> Descriptive and then Expository writing. <S> Tense would not be an issue. <S> Hope this helps. <A> It is important to understand why the answers by @cyn and @eyeballfrog are both correct. <S> You can only do this in a narration where addressing the reader <S> directly is part of your narration, e.g. when your text is a fictional report or letter or journal, or you have a framing narrative in which your narrator tells a tale to an audience. <S> If you write in an impersonal omnisient style or want the reader to be immersed in the experiences of the protagonist, you would do better to avoid present tense for universal truths.

When you switch from past tense to present tense for universal truths, you explicitly talk to the reader and refer to their f.

Is it bad to project myself into my story? After reading that a Mary-Sue often is a projection of the author, I realized most of my stories are. Is it a bad thing? My MC aren't Mary-sues (at least I hope so), they're the opposite of perfect and always succeeding: I focus on flaws and illnesses, making some bad decisions, paying the price and regretting them, running away from their responsabilites, etc. But most of the time, "how my MC would react to this" or is very close to "how would I react to this". However this is only true for the setting, and character development is quite different. I've also found a bunch of questions (1) (2) asking how NOT to do it, making me think it's something I should avoid even more. Is there something inherently wrong with it? Does it make my story less interesting to read? <Q> Self-projection into one's stories is an inevitability. <S> Whose lens affects your outlook on life, and thus the worldbuilding/tone of your novel? <S> That's right, yours. <S> Who is the only person you have direct experience of the thoughts of? <S> Once again, you. <S> As such, you shouldn't be surprised or beat yourself up over the fact your characters take on some, or even many of your traits. <S> The question is not whether or not you share traits with your characters, but your intent behind it; believe me, it bleeds through. <S> If you're writing to have an escapist power-trip fantasy with people you think you'd like, then you're writing a mary sue, and it'll be obvious to even a slightly discerning reader (even the ones simple enough to think powerful/skilled characters alone are mary sues). <S> If you're writing to tell a story with layered, flawed characters to explore a theme through arcs and exploration, well, it'll show. <S> It doesn't matter how incestuous the character soup is, if pretty much every character inherits something from their creator; as long as they are distinct enough to stand out and explore what needs to be explored, then you should be fine. <S> Mary-sue call-out culture has wracked poor folks like you with fear, and frankly, that isn't cool. <S> I wrote an essay on this topic (it might be a tad rambling in hindsight) that can be found here: https://storiesfromsekai.com/2018/06/17/critical-essay-the-checklist-effect-how-the-mary-sue-label-killed-creativity/ <A> +1 Matthew. <S> Bottom line is a Mary-Sue is too lucky and too perfect, and that is not what you are writing. <S> Readers turn pages to find out what happens in the next few pages: Not just in the end, but there must be constant conflict. <S> Mary-Sue defuses the conflict because we know she won't fail <S> , she won't disappoint anybody, etc. <S> I expect writers to produce MC that reflect themselves, the bigger danger is if all your characters are the same reflections of you; and the villains are cardboard cutouts. <S> Too much agreement (especially by the good guys) can also defuse conflict <S> -- you don't want to write a collective Mary-Sue. <S> Now I do believe in happy-endings <S> , that is what most people want (unhappy endings generate bad word-of-mouth or lack of recommendations that severely depress sales). <S> But as you have done for your MC, ensure the rest of the cast is also flawed, makes mistakes, sometimes doesn't know what to do, and argues different points-of-view they won't give up easily, even if they are wrong. <A> In addition to Matthew Dave's excellent answer.. <S> Whether a character/story is interesting or not is more about the character/story themselves rather than where the inspiration for it comes from. <S> Something that gets very tiresome is when every (or at least most) of the characters are variations on the same projection but that doesn't sound like what you are doing. <S> If supposedly different characters all behave/react in the same way that doesn't work. <S> A "Mary-Sue" <S> can be a problem (depending upon execution) - but that isn't really because it's a projection of the author - they tend to be more idealized projections rather than realistic ones <S> (i.e. they are who the author fantasizes about being in the story) and it's the idealization part rather than the projection that is the problem. <S> A well-known example is everyone's favorite Star Trek chew-toy Wesley Crusher who was seen by many fans as being a Gene Roddenberry playing out his day dreams with a Mary-Sue archetype of himself, complete with insane amounts of contorted Wesley-saves-the-day plots - it's not until Roddenberry took a step back from the show that the character experienced actual development and real adversity (that wasn't just "Those dumb adults don't appreciate his genius")

An author projecting themselves onto a character is not automatically going to be boring, if they are projecting interesting traits and elements onto the character then they are going to be interesting. The problem with Mary-Sue is a lack of conflict and thus boredom with the character.

MC doesn't know something that's obvious to the reader (Another post-apocalyptic novel question! I'm just full of them.) My MC, Eris, has the power to manipulate life force. As a child, she accidentally killed her family and other survivors who investigated the commotion she caused while killing them, and has semi-suppressed the memory, causing the pain and trauma of the events to manifest in a recurring third-person nightmare, where she watches herself kill her family (but doesn't fully know that she's looking at her younger self). Now she's a young woman, and has been found by a group of survivors and taken in. She feels out of place and is constantly afraid of being discovered as a killer, even if she herself doesn't quite know what she's done. Away from the others, unseen by anyone, and in a moment of rage, she projects her powers and fells a tree, killing it just by touching it. She's horrified and has only an inkling of the ramifications of her actions, and barely, if at all, makes a connection between the bizarre thing she just did and her nightmares of the girl who kills her family. I've previously talked about Eris having difficulty with acknowledging bad things she's done here . I'm maybe a quarter of the way through the story, and I think that the reader can easily stitch together context clues and figure out that the girl in Eris' dreams is her, and Eris is a killer and possesses superhuman abilities. To me, the writer, it's obvious, and when I share my piece with peers and teachers, they know what's going on and can easily put the pieces of the puzzle together. But since it's so easy for the readers to get the background of Eris' character and figure out who she is and what she's done, would it be just as easy for Eris to do the same? Is it unrealistic for her to be unable to connect the dots and remember her actions? Will it bore the reader that Eris is missing something big? <Q> Is it unrealistic for her to be unable to connect the dots and remember her actions? <S> I think you should look at this in a slightly different way. <S> It's not that she's unable to connect the dots; it's that she's unwilling to. <S> I notice you specified in the linked question that: <S> even when she is alone she is unable to acknowledge the truth of her actions <S> So she might notice the dots, but she would deliberately avoid connecting them because she doesn't like the pattern they make. <S> She may notice that the power with which she felled that tree is similar to the power from her nightmares, but she would immediately shrug it off as a coincidence, or perhaps even deny that the felling was her doing at all. <S> The alternative - that the woman in the dream is her , that <S> she killed her family - is just too horrifying for her to contemplate. <S> It would still be obvious to your readers what the truth is. <S> But instead of them potentially thinking Eris is an idiot for not putting the pieces together, they would instead (hopefully) realise that she's deeply in denial and simply doesn't want to. <A> As both @F1Krazy and @Rasdashan say, it's not unrealistic for a character not to realise what is clear to the reader. <S> In a way, the character actively refuses to connect the dots, she has a strong impetus to respond this way, whereas the readers would have no inhibition to understanding what's going on. <S> However, since for the reader there is no mystery, you cannot rely on mystery to create tension. <S> I remember reading a particular fantasy book which has received wide acclaim, but was built around a single mystery the characters were trying to solve. <S> Having deduced the answer two hundred pages before the MCs, I found myself bored to tears, waiting for the characters to finally figure it out. <S> The author provided nothing else to engage me, other than the search for the solution which I have already found. <S> It follows, that you would have to provide something else to engage the reader, instead of the mystery of "what happened to Eris's parents" . <A> It also helps to know how old she was when she massacred her family. <S> If she were four or so, the connection between the act and the result would be frail as young children have no real concept of death. <S> There was a school shooting years ago where a child (I think he was five or six) shot and killed a classmate. <S> He had no understanding of what he had done by pointing daddy’s <S> gun at his friend and squeezing. <S> Denial is powerful and we are often blind to ourselves but perceptive of others. <S> Eris might believe that she witnessed this tragedy and would some day avenge their meaningless deaths. <S> The eventual realization that she is the one she is hungering to kill will be a shock. <S> Some part of her will know that she is dangerous, but aren’t we all? <S> Get inside her head, sprinkle a few red herrings for her to find and let the reader watch as she struggles with the grief and guilt without truly understanding the source. <S> In the movie Looper, the child had killed his mother in a fit of rage. <S> His emotions tended to create cyclones of items swirling about, lethal potential everywhere. <S> He never understood that the aunt who raised him had not taken him from his mother - he had. <S> Presumably, his older self was distracted from introspection by the attempt on his own life as a child - paradox of time travel. <S> What the MC sought to do - remove the dangerous person who eventually kills everyone he loves - possibly caused the character to become a dangerous criminal. <S> Some characters are just not that introspective. <S> If you make it a part of who she is, the reader will realize it will probably take something extraordinary to make her ponder the issue and realize how dangerous she really is.

A tension-building question that would engage the readers could be who / how many would get hurt because Eris refuses to realise what she's doing.

Should I start a new paragraph after a dialogue if the action is being taken by a new person? I am currently editing an original work of fiction, and one of the things I'm having the most trouble with is dialogue and paragraphs after certain character's actions. I know it sounds a little confusing, but I'll try my best to explain. In this example paragraph, there are three characters: Nat (the narrator), Oddie, and Arden. Would it be written: “We can just call her Rose,” Arden suggests, leaning back on his hands, any leftover semblances of sleep wiped clear from his face. “I thought you said that name was already taken?” He shrugs, toeing the remnants of his cloak over his lap. I throw my arms in the air, exasperated. or, “We can just call her Rose,” Arden suggests, leaning back on his hands, any leftover semblances of sleep wiped clear from his face. “I thought you said that name was already taken?” He shrugs, toeing the remnants of his cloak over his lap. I throw my arms in the air, exasperated. Basically, I'm wondering if I should start a new paragraph after the dialogue if the action is being taken by a person other than the one who just finished talking. I know it sounds a bit confusing. I'm very sorry if I don't explain myself well. Still, I hope someone will be able to help me, as I'm having some trouble with this. The second option seems right to me, but in writing it like that, I'm afraid the reader might get confused about who's doing what. Any help will be greatly appreciated! <Q> I would say it is definitely a new paragraph if only to indicate 'he' didn't say 'I thought ...'. <S> I teach that you start a new paragraph when you change speaker, place, time or character. <S> Here the change is character. <A> First of all, I'll admit I had some trouble identifying who said <S> “I thought you said that name was already taken?” <S> I'm assuming that Oddie said it in reaction to Arden's suggestion and that Nat, the narrator, got exasperated when Arden shrugged. <S> Please let me know if I got it wrong. <S> Option 2 <S> “We can just call her Rose,” Arden suggests, leaning back on his hands, any leftover semblances of sleep wiped clear from his face. <S> “I thought you said that name was already taken?” <S> He shrugs, toeing the remnants of his cloak over his lap. <S> I throw my arms in the air, exasperated. <S> This makes it look as if the speaker shrugs while saying the line. <S> Option 1 <S> “We can just call her Rose,” Arden suggests, leaning back on his hands, any leftover semblances of sleep wiped clear from his face. <S> “I thought you said that name was already taken?” <S> He shrugs, toeing the remnants of his cloak over his lap. <S> I throw my arms in the air, exasperated. <S> This does not give the impression the speaker of the line and the person who shrugs are the same. <S> Note: If you feel the reader might get confused about who is saying what, use the character's name or an attribute that clearly identifies the character. <S> “I thought you said that name was already taken?” <S> Arden shrugs, toeing the remnants of his cloak over his lap. <S> Imagine that Arden's cloak is blue while Oddie's brown. <S> “I thought you said that name was already taken?” <S> He shrugged, toeing the remnants of his blue cloak over his lap. <A> Yes. <S> You mention the excerpt involves 3 characters. <S> We know the first person part is Nat, the narrator. <S> And of course the parts you label as being from Arden are from that character. <S> But where is Oddie? <S> Is he the speaker in the middle? <S> If so, try this: <S> “We can just call her Rose,” Arden suggests, leaning back on his hands, any leftover semblances of sleep wiped clear from his face. <S> Oddie looks up. <S> “I thought you said that name was already taken?” <S> Arden shrugs, toeing the remnants of his cloak over his lap. <S> I throw my arms in the air, exasperated. <A> It's considered normal to start a new paragraph when somebody new speaks; however, it's not essential. <S> I've read more than a few books where dialogue from two people happens in the same paragraph. <S> When done correctly, it can be done without any confusion. <S> The main point, however, is that it needs to be made clear who's speaking. <S> Switching to a new paragraph is a stylistic way of indicating that the speaker has changed. <S> But just switching paragraphs may not be enough. <S> For example, there could be more than two characters. <S> Switching to a new paragraph will likely not be sufficient to indicate that the conversation has switched out of an alternating discourse between two people <S> and it's now a third or fourth character interjecting themselves into the dialogue. <S> What can also be disconcerting is when the same character is speaking in a new paragraph. <S> This is normally indicated with the lack of a closing quotation mark at the end of the previous paragraph. <S> Nonetheless, that may not be easily spotted—and if it's missed, it can cause confusion. <S> Whether it's different people in the same paragraph, different people in alternating paragraphs, or the same person in multiple paragraphs, narrative markers can be very helpful. <S> If it's not clear (no matter what the format), break the speech to identify the speaker in some way. <S> Incidentally, regardless of the paragraph breaks, it's not clear who is speaking the second line of dialogue in the passage you've provided. <S> It's likely Oddie—but it could also be Nat. <S> (It could even have been Arden, continuing on from the previous paragraph, if different words had been spoken.) <S> Unless the speaker is clear when viewing the passage from its larger context, I would say you should give some kind of explicit indication of who that second line of dialogue is coming from. <A> I've seen both forms used, but in the first one it feels like he says it, and then he shrugs. <S> While in the second one it feels like he is saying it as he is shrugging. <S> Hope that helped <3

Not only should you start a new paragraph for every character, but you need to be clear about who is saying or doing what.

Third person story, containing a first person backstory In several third person (usually limited) stories that I've read, there comes a time when one character shares some of their backstory to one or more other characters. This backstory is always (or almost always) shared with the reader in third person. I tend to find this irritating immersion breaking. The story is in third person, but I always feel that a backstory told by one character about themselves to other characters would be in first person in the story, and therefore the writer should share this backstory as told by that character, not from the third person narrator. Question : In a third person story, should a backstory told about a character, by that character be shared with the reader in the first person point of view that the character is giving it in, or would it be better for the author to stick with the previously established third person point of view that the rest of the story is told in? Note: Please don't use any visual medias in your answers. I get why it would be a bad idea for them to tell a first person story. <Q> Are you changing narrators? <S> Now when you get to the back-story, does the character who is being talked about take over the narration or is it still the narrator? <S> In most cases it would still be the narrator. <S> For instance, If I am telling you a story about some people that I know. <S> As I introduce those people to you I may tell you some of their back story. <S> Unless they come and personally deliver that backstory I am going to tell it to you in third person. <S> Most people don't change narrators during the story. <S> In fact it is usually an omniscient nameless vehicle for delivering everything. <S> If you want to change POV you can. <S> Rules are made to be broken. <S> Just do it well. <S> If you deliver a backstory in First Person give the reader a reason why the narrator changed. <A> Who is telling this backstory? <S> Is it a separate section, set apart from the rest of the book? <S> Or does the narrator tell the story? <S> One advantage to using both is that it's very clear to the reader that the narrative point of view has changed <S> and there's no confusion over who is speaking. <S> I've seen novels with multiple first person narrators and sometimes it takes a while to figure out who is who. <S> That's something you want to avoid. <S> Sometimes sticking with third person (with or without a different narrator focus) is what works best. <S> But if the original narrator uses third person for the regular story and then is also telling the backstory, stick with the third person for both. <A> This is "writer's choice." <S> If you tell it in first-person, you are presenting it in the voice of the character, as being told, in-world, by that character, out loud. <S> So you'll need to treat it as an extended monologue by a character, and present it in a way that makes sense in that context. <S> If you tell it in third-person, you're telling it as an omniscient narrator. <S> Typically this means that your narrative isn't closely following the POV of a single character, but is able to freely jump between characters, and to tell things they don't know. <S> If, on the other hand, your third-person narrator is otherwise over-the-shoulder of the main character, telling an additional character's story in third person requires the understanding that you are retelling something the main character would have heard, but in the narrative voice, not the (other) character's voice. <S> This is a bit of an extra stretch for the reader, which is probably why you personally find it vexing. <S> Given that, if you don't like this technique, don't use it. <S> There's nothing inherently wrong with embedding a first-person narrative in a third-person narrative --it <S> just comes with its own challenges and best practices. <A> For me, it depends on whether the backstory is completely true or not. <S> Swapping to first person (almost a monologue) permits the new story teller to lie. <S> Holding it in third person makes it 'true'. <S> Changing narrator may not be common now, but has been used in the past (Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins that I know of). <S> Fundamentally, whatever works for the story you are telling.

Think of your Third-Person story as being told by a single narrator. It's fine to use first person for an entire novel, or for a piece of it, if it suits your purpose.

How do I make my character be a part of something without it seeming forced? I'm writing a Star Wars fanfiction because I wanted to practice my writing on something I love, and I decided to make a character named Alexander Ray Rullero. He's not the main character, as in he is not the character you will be following most of the time. He's the secondary main character and he will be someone who you'll probably dislike in the beginning. He's a pessimist and doesn't believe in what he's fighting for. He will always try and weasel his way out of anything dangerous assignments and will criticize the idealistic primary main character for their hopes of a better future. He dislikes the main character because he believes their optimism is out of place in a battle as futile as the one that is the Rebels against the Empire. At least, Ray thinks the rebel's fight against the Empire is futile. Like, the main character says "The Imperial fleet won't notice us, right? I mean, we're hidden in the most tightly packed asteroid belt I've ever seen! We'll make it out of here without a scratch!", and Ray would reply with "They have radar technology, and when they do find us, those star destroyers will do much more than just "Scratch" this lump of glorified scrap metal that we call a ship". As you can see, it doesn't exactly seem like he wants to be a part of the Rebel Alliance. Though Ray will grow as a character, gradually becoming less pessimistic, more supportive, and eventually he'll come to the point where he thinks the Rebel cause is something worth fighting for. He'd even encourage the main character to keep fighting the Empire when they think that all is lost at one point. But that's later, and I intended to make Ray a part of the Alliance off the bat. I feel as if I've written myself into a corner here. I want him around so that he can tell the main character that what their fighting for his hopeless, only to encourage the main character to keep fighting and never give up hope when the main character loses all optimism and nearly gives up. If anyone could give me any ideas as to how I can make this character a part of the Rebel Alliance without it seeming as if I've forced him to be there, then that would be greatly appreciated. <Q> Perhaps Ray ended up with the Rebellion in a similar manner, or is someone who was on the run from the Empire due to petty crimes or the like and ended up joining the Rebel Alliance out of necessity. <S> This may even lead to some people treating him with suspicion or considering him a liability (think of the cynical/pragmatic DJ and what he did in The Last Jedi, after all), which could add depth to your story with him ultimately having to prove himself to those who don't believe it once he becomes fully committed to the Rebel cause. <A> Try to set straight what exactly he doesn't like about the alliance, and what makes him support them anyway. <S> Often one's reasons are not singular, or simple. <S> Certain aspects might make him almost leave the alliance, but others will make him stay. <S> Think of it like grading. <S> He might not reach an A+ in devotion, but a D will do. <S> Some ideas that might help you: He thinks that if you want something done, you should do it yourself. <S> He made a promise to someone or something. <S> He doesn't understand certain things about the alliance, but believes it's the best choice concerning the circumstances. <S> He doesn't believe in the ideal, but in the people. <S> ( Or vice-versa ) <S> He doesn't like doing it, but he has to. <S> He has become desensitized throughout the years, and thinks their goal may not be reached in his lifetime. <S> He joined a while ago, but has now become a known criminal/rebel, making him unable to leave. <S> Mix and match to your liking. <S> Personally I would go for the arc that this young new MC does or achieves something that was deemed difficult to improbable. <S> This will make him think what else has become possible with this new information/tactic/strategy/mcguffin. <S> "You. <S> What. <S> How did you...? <S> Hold on. <S> I need to go make a call." <A> What about a revenge style back story. <S> He's pessimistic because of his history, but driven to fight the empire by his anger. <A> He's wanted for a crime by the Empire. <S> It should be one that isn't a crime under the Rebels <S> (i.e. Lots of dictatorships hate the people who point out they are incompetent) or some similar reason, he is no longer legally allowed in society in the Empire and any attempts to return are way worse than leaving the Rebels. <S> Perhaps he's an arms dealer who sold unknowingly to Rebellion buyers or perhaps he is just a poor guy being chased by troopers for selling death-sticks (when he was on his way home to rethink his life no less) and stowed away on the force transport that got him outta there... <S> which was the rebel ship that is now in way over it's head... <S> Either way... the Rebels don't care about his criminal connections, but the Empire does. <S> These could be put to use... <S> maybe he knows a Twi'lek who knows a Gamorian who knows a Hutt... <S> Or he can build a street smart solution to a problem that the book smart guys are over thinking.

He has certain skill set or knowledge that make him one of the few people to pull something off. Consider Han Solo in the original trilogy; he was a smuggler who was only in it for the money at first, got roped into something much larger than he had anticipated, but eventually came around to the Rebellion's side in full. He's with the rebels because he's been wronged by someone close to him who is part of the empire. He has seen too many people die, and is difficult to breach without proving that you're going to last longer then a few months.

Unfair Motivation for a Judge to Dislike an Accused I have a scene where a character is applying to be released from prison pending trial. I want an arbitrary / unfair reason for the judge to dislike him. It has to be something that is not justified to keep him in prison (ie, risk of committing further offences, running away, or interfering with witnesses). I was thinking something like he is rude to the judge/police, he has some character flaw that people don't tend to like etc. EDIT: In response to the helpful answer below, it occurred to me that I should have pointed out that it would be good for it to be something that the readers wouldn't like either. I'd really appreciate any ideas! <Q> In a modern setting, the prosecution may submit something like blogs or emails intended to prove the defendant was involved in some crime or had knowledge of it. <S> But the judge, in reading these blogs, finds the defendant's other opinions repellent, even though legal. <S> These could be talking about a callous attitude toward women, for example, or how he insisted his girlfriend have an abortion, or a liberal attitude about drugs or immigrants, or any number of other things allowed as free speech, that grates on the judge. <S> In any case by reading the defendant's communications, the judge just doesn't like the defendant as a person or human being, even though the behavior itself does not rise to the level of criminal activity; it is just an "ick" factor for the judge and the reader. <A> Have you considered racism? <S> May not fit with your story, but maybe some kind of societal objection ... like wrong accent, hair too long, tattoos ... all arbitrary, but could influence someone to be more harsh/unfair. <A> You don't need a valid/justifiable reason to dislike someone. <S> Maybe the judge didn't even care. <S> Maybe he was just watching porn on his smart phone and decided to reject the appeal, because that's his default answer... <S> The point is, it is hard work to explain why the judge dislikes him.. <S> ;) <S> All you want to do is to have the guy stay in prison for the wrong reasons, and have the judge be the 'bad' guy... <S> So why not just go for it? <S> And it didn't even matter ...

You can throw in whatever you want the readers to not like about him in the story..

Planning story using layers, compartmentalization, and time Plot, environment, characters, each one is a layer in a story. Each layer is also a compartment for further layers that are internally affected by external changes in their own, unique way, and each will be affected differently by the same stimuli over the development of the story. What systems exists to keep track of story development on such minute level? Or at least any that would be closest fit to what I'm describing? I'm looking for one where even if the first draft was lost it could easily be recreated from the planned structure. I have arrived at a final iteration of my story concept, now I want to set up the framework to build it upon, like a mason building a house, I want to build a world. Edit: Trying to clarify, sorry I'm bad at wording my thoughts and I'm struggling to wrap my head around what I'm trying to plan/ask/do. A story can be broken into common, independent collections of elements, like plots, characters, environments. These collections is what I refer to as layers. They share similar attributes and behavior, but apply them differently. Within the layer, each element has its own common attributes and characteristics that directly affect only itself, e.g. a character can have fears, strengths, weaknesses, but a plot would not and vice-versa, but it would not directly affect another elements's attributes. Each element is the default characteristics + culmination of interactions with other elements, resulting in development/changes of said element's attributes. In a single world, most if not all elements will be interconnected directly or indirectly, therefore any single event would have rippling effects on every aspect of the story. E.g. an earthquake could cause a landslide that destroys MC's village, which forces them to adventure, which is attributed to goddess Tera, at the same time it changes the environment causing Dark Lord's army to lose their advantage and rebellion to prevail in their clutch battle. MC curses Tera while the Rebellion reveres, MC proceeds to kill Tera and sides with Rebellion because DL is BBEG, Rebellion swears to avenge Tera, creating a conflict when MC and Rebellion cross paths to defeat DL after finding out MC was Tera's murderer all along or something like that. System I'm thinking of would keep help keep track of each compartment, relationship to other elements, history between it and other elements, direct and indirect effects of other elements on it, how it affects and its changes affect other elements, how these relationships change over time, how element can be expected to respond to change/interaction etc. The more I think about it the more it seems that to pull it off on this level I would need to write a program for this task. tl;dr I'm extremely meticulous and I'm planning a complex story which I will struggle keeping track of without efficient planning and tracking system in place. <Q> You might find Scrivener to be useful. <S> Scrivener is a writing program which allows you a lot of control: organization, nesting files inside folders inside folders, tags, summaries, highlights, links, snapshots of individual bits of writing, and so on. <S> If you want to be able to recreate a lost project from an outline, you simply have to have a very detailed outline. <S> Sci-fi writer Diane Duane lost an enormous chunk of her novel Spock's World very shortly before deadline, but was able to rewrite the entire thing in an insane 10-day sprint because her outline was at the level you describe. <S> That outline could be in Scrivener, Word, a spreadsheet, crayon, or coal on the back of a shovel. <A> The snowflake method may help you organize your thoughts and build a story in the way that you want. <S> There are ten steps which move you back and forth between creating characters and creating plot. <S> Each one challenges you to think deeper and grow your story. <S> Here's a broad outline, but you need to give a more detailed resource to understand it fully. <S> A single sentence describing your story. <S> (You need this to sell your book anyway, so start here) <S> Expand your sentence into a paragraph. <S> Sentence one is setup. <S> 2-4 are your three main acts. <S> 5 is your conclusion. <S> Now write the same type of paragraph for each main character in your story (including your villain, if there is one) <S> so that you know what each character is doing or thinking at any moment. <S> Expand the paragraph in step 2 to a page with give paragraphs (one for each sentence). <S> You now have a synopsis. <S> Write a synopsis for each character. <S> Write a for page long synopsis. <S> Now you are getting into book details. <S> Create character Bibles. <S> A point for you to research. <S> Write down every scene that you need, based in your synopsis and character sheets. <S> Pre plan the scenes a bit. <S> Write the novel. <S> Because most of the planning work is done up front. <S> If you revise your score flake heavily as it expand and are experienced, this actually makes the writing process faster for some people. <S> For you, I think it's a good way of staying focused on the parts of the story that matter so you don't get lost in the weeds <S> and so that you value the space that you actually have. <A> I saw it demo'd at BaltiCon (a local lit-focused con) last spring. <S> https://archivos.digital/ <S> from their "about" page: <S> First, ARCHIVOS helps Storytellers document the characters, places, and events of their stories, detailing the basic framework for the tale. <S> Then, Storytellers connect those story elements by defining the relationships between them that articulate not just the existence of the connection but also its nature (professional, personal, political, geographical, etc.). <S> The relationships in ARCHIVOS also support a hierarchy, like that of a parent to a child, or a manager to an employee. <S> This framework will help identify and organize the structures within the story world. <S> You can add all sorts of attributes to your characters, mark where and when they are, and zoom in with the map and timeline to see how everything intersects. <S> It sounds like this would suit your writing/world-building style! <S> It's free for building one world, and $6/mo for unlimited.

Another program you may find useful is Archivos.

Is it ok to use "aluminium" in an otherwise American English text? I am not an American English native (I'm actually a German native speaker) but, when I write, I use the American style of words predominantly. However, I always use aluminium instead of aluminum , following the nomenclature that is used by all the rest of the world save for the US and Canada. It is also was the only valid IUPAC name between 1990 and 1993, since when aluminum is allowed as an acceptable variant 1 , but IUPAC publications strive to use the official aluminium variant. Is it ok to break with AE and choose the BE/international version with this one word only (in a non-scientific text)? Non-scientific means in this context any text that is not a scientific publication, among others fiction or blog posts. Footnotes 1 - Connelly, Neil G.; Damhus, Ture, eds. (2005): Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry: IUPAC recommendations 2005 , p249: Table I Names, symbols and atomic numbers of the elements (see also Section IR-3.1) Name           Symbol  Atomic Number aluminium a       Al               13 In said table's footnotes: a: the alternative spelling aluminum is commonly used This is not British / American language mishmash as this one just aims at one specific instance of one specific term and not a general "mix and match". This one case also is not looked at in the other question. <Q> Since you have a real-world justification, why not use that same justification in your fictional setting? <S> If you want to make it a thing, have a character say "aluminum" and the other characters can eyeroll or correct as per their personalities. <S> You could also have your infodump characters be from an international organization, and thereby set the standard for communication. <S> You can also have the individual characters use the word they would be most comfortable with. <S> I doubt readers would be confused any more than if you used "metre" or "colour". <S> (I realize it is actually more than just a variant spelling, but there is little chance the meaning would be mistaken.) <S> My answer is the same for your narrator/narrative voice. <S> Use what you feel is natural, or use the version that empathizes with the MC . <A> In a non-scientific text (or in a scientific text, for that matter,) you should really keep it consistent. <S> If you're otherwise using British English, then 'Aluminium' will look perfectly normal, just like 'colour' or 'metre.' <S> However, if you're writing in American English, it will look weird, just as 'colour' or 'metre' would in an otherwise-American text. <S> Unless you have some reason why the use of this spelling should actually be important to your story, using a spelling that is not consistent with the rest of your text will look jarring and will distract your reader from the story. <S> Of course, if you actually want the distinction to be important in your story, then that's another matter. <S> In that case, you can have your characters draw attention to the difference and have them discuss the use of one variety over the other. <S> As a side note, mentioning that this spelling is 'only' used in the USA and Canada really doesn't help the argument much, as the same argument could be made for all of American English. <S> And, even if being used against all of AmE, it's still a poor argument in light of the fact that around 40% of all English speakers and over two thirds of all native English speakers worldwide speak the American variety. <S> Both the American spellings and the British ones are used by very large percentages of English speakers, so trying to dismiss either one is kind of silly. <S> Just pick one or the other and then be consistent unless there's a good reason for the spelling to deviate from the accepted one in the dialect of your text. <A> Yes. <S> It's your story, so <S> it's okay. <S> And I can't be the only American who wasn't all that aware of the difference and whose eyes gloss over the two <S> (I can only see them as different now that you've pointed it out to me, though I was dimly aware before, and now I understand why Brits pronounce it so strangely). <S> Be aware though: <S> Your publisher may ask you to change it. <S> Fortunately, it's a super quick change to do globally <S> no matter how long your work. <S> When an American looks at your text inside any program with a spellchecker, it lights up like a Christmas tree. <A> (Academic Copyeditor here) <S> I see no problems; you have a good justification. <S> If this is your text (your blog, a self-published book), you're done, though you might want to add a footnote etc. <S> to explain why you're using that spelling. <S> If someone else will publish the text, you should talk to your editor AND make a note in the text. <S> Talk to the editor because they may or may not have liberty with house style, and if it's a multi-author volume or a journal, they will want to keep things consistent. <S> Make a note <S> because the copyeditor may or may not notice that this is deliberate, and may or may not change it – once you flag it as deliberate, they're likely to leave it alone, respectively you can change it back if you have the editor's backing. <A> In this case that would be either Aluminium or Aluminum. <S> Pick the one that you prefer and be consistent in your text. <S> If it is for fiction or a vulgarization essay, then unless you have other reasons to do so, use the term that your readers will find most fitting. <S> In this case that would be Aluminum. <S> PS Note that precision and consistency in scientific writing is not negotiable. <A> It's a minor difference, so I wouldn't get hung up on it. <S> If it's an issue for a publisher, it's easy to fix. <S> I do a similar thing with the word "gray", because the street I grew up on had the word "grey" included in it, meaning that I always spell it wrong according to American English. <S> Nobody aside from Microsoft Word's spellchecker has ever given me trouble-- <S> or, I suspect, even noticed.

If it is a scientific article, or scientific text, then by all means use the most precise term.

Should I cite a source that cites an older source? I am writing a scientific research paper and one of the sources I am using introduced a concept which I am using within the paper. The source I read (published in 1969) credits this concept as being coined by a different source (published in 1944). I do not have access to the original source. Would there be a problem if I do not cite the original source because I do not have access to it? Or do I have to include the original author since everyone else credits the 1944 source? <Q> It depends on your audience and/or publisher. <S> If this is a paper for a class, you're probably fine. <S> But if this is your thesis/dissertation or something you're going to publish, you need to see that earlier work. <S> It would be one thing if you were just alluding to the concept. <S> Listing it as one you've dismissed, for example. <S> But you're actually using the concept in your paper. <S> You need to have a full understanding of where it comes from. <S> You may decide you like the original version better, or you might prefer the later one. <S> It may also turn out that the 1969 author was being thorough but really the 1944 idea didn't do the same thing. <S> What worries me most though is when you say "everyone else credits the 1944 source." <S> That's a sign that it's important. <S> There is no getting around it; you need to see the 1944 work. <S> To be clear, I'm not saying just that you need to cite the 1944 author, but that you have to read the 1944 work. <A> Ideally you should not only cite both sources (and others like the 1969 a one that credit the 1944 source), but also acknowledge and defend being your discussion in the 1969 explanation. <S> After all, the paper that invented the idea often didn't explain it in the way people find most pedagogically useful today. <S> You could go with something like this (if the last example is a meta-analysis, textbook or other kind of general review, that's even better): <S> X means Y. X is attributed in many sources (Johnson 1969, Timson 1984, Reynolds 2003) to Allman 1944. <S> We will follow the notational conventions of Johnson 1969. <S> I suck at inventing surnames, but you get the point. <A> In scientific academic settings, the original article should be preferred, read and cited, and an effort should be made to do so. <S> It is however acceptable to refer to a more recent one under certain circumstances. <S> For instance, you may cite the recent article if: the recent article offers a complete analysis of the idea you refer to. <S> It is still fine if the idea originated elsewhere but the authors provide an extensive analysis. <S> you have no way to verify the content of the older article, <S> e.g. If it is written in a language you don't understand the recent article is a review and discusses many articles that are relevant to your work. <S> To cite as "for a review on the topic see X" Note that you don't need to justify your choice. <S> If you're writing an article, you may be requested by the reviewers to add references. <A> I had a similar issue in an essay once, but it ended up being fine. <A> There are only two scientifically viable opinions on this: Cite the reference as citing a reference Cite the original reference after looking that up if possible. <S> The easy style is to say " In Alice essay ABC she cites Bob using the term DEF in his Essay GHI " and then providing the reference where Alice says so. <S> The better scientific way is to try to acquire the referenced work by Bob, read it yourself, then cite the original. <S> Don't cite a reference that you have not read yourself, some authors deliberately pervert the original author by misquoting them. <S> Others change the whole meaning of a paragraph by not quoting all the relevant parts.

It might depend on the institution, but often times it's fine because it's your personal source for information, and if your reviewer looks at the source they will see where it comes from.

How to show the same emotion multiple times? I think everyone has heard the "show don't tell" rule. My question is how can I show same emotion multiple times without the description being the same. For example if my character is scared I can write how his heart raced, his hand where shaking etc. If the character is scared twice in my book I can find some new thing to 'show'. But what if he is scared five or ten times in the book I will soon run out of ways to show his fear. How can I describe the same emotion without it being repetitive? I am writing in third person limited POV if that's relevant. <Q> Think Contextually Consider the scene at hand to provide with an idea of how the character will react to the specific scare. <S> Consider A Zombie Story <S> I don't know what type of story you're writing but consider a zombie story. <S> The first time the character encounters a zombie she is going to have a completely different response than the fifteenth time she encounters one. <S> That is your guide. <S> If there are new creepier things that happen when she encounters a zombie (or group of zombies) she will react differently otherwise the reader will know she is at a basic level of creeped out <S> and there is no need to show the reaction every time. <S> However, there will be continual unexpected shocks as your main character turns a corner and encounters a zombie she didn't know <S> was there and that will be normal for your readers. <S> Just keep the context in mind and each scared reaction should come off just right. <A> Sometimes showing the same emotion repetitively can be a good thing. <S> Take for example a habit, like rolling your eyes or biting your nails. <S> You could intentionally repeat yourself, but the trick is to keep that fresh and not abuse it. <S> He bit at his nails. <S> His mother reached out, slapping his hand down, "Stop that!" <S> Then, later, He worked, and worked. <S> He bit his nails down too far, to the point where it starts to hurt. <S> He hardly noticed. <S> Then, finally, His hands rose to his mouth - like they always did - but he stopped himself before he began to bite. <S> He took a deep breath in, and began his speech. <S> This way you are not only showing the reader how the character is in the current situation, you are establishing their personality and behaviour. <A> Let me start with an example: It's the waiting that was the worst. <S> The attack would come, they just didn't know when. <S> Could be another minute. <S> Could be another hour. <S> Ben sat nearby, sharpening his bayonet. <S> Aaron wanted to scream at him to stop making that godawful noise, like a nail scratching glass over and over. <S> The fear in that short passage has a particular flavour: it's nervousness before an upcoming battle. <S> Now, every time your character is afraid, their fear would have a slightly different flavour, right? <S> They're in a different situation, they're thinking different thoughts, they're afraid of a different thing. <S> Even if it's, for example, a war novel, and <S> your character is afraid multiple times in similar circumstances, he won't be thinking the same thoughts, would he? <S> The fear of a green rookie is different from that of someone who has seen a few things. <S> Get into your characters' head. <S> Figure out what exactly they're afraid of in each particular instance, what it is they're thinking. <S> One isn't just "afraid to die". <S> One might wonder whether it would hurt, or be concerned about leaving loved ones behind, or not completing some mission, or one might be more afraid of losing a limb than of actually dying... <S> Or one might not be thinking of what they're afraid of, but of other things - past, future, hopes, failures, family... <S> If the danger is not fully understood, one is very likely to be trying to figure it out. <S> Etc. <S> The less time your character has to be afraid in each situation, the less time for introspection they have, and so their reaction could be more of one startled - a physical reaction. <S> (A physical habit is also possible in other fear situations - @ErdrikIronrose gives a fine example of a habit that can be shown to illustrate an emotion.) <S> You can, and should, also rely on setting the atmosphere to convey danger. <S> If the reader is aware of the danger to the character, you needn't say as much about the character being afraid. <S> For example, if enemy planes are flying overhead, and the character is hiding, and maybe someone comments that those bombers are flying low, you understand that the characters in the situation are afraid.

If you tie the (scared) reaction that the character exhibits to the particular event each time then your writing will portray a scene which feels real. Characters might have a habit, and you show their emotions by using that habit.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of copying writing styles? I come from a non-native English speaking country and, from my own analysis, I will say I have an intermediate level English fluency (IELTS score 7). Some of the articles on my blog were chosen by an international magazine (free of course). But now I am writing a novel. The way we normally speak English is, of course, different from how it's spoken in native English countries. So the writing style for narration also is different. I have read a few novels from local authors and their (and my) style is really much different from the authors whose genre I aspire to write. For example, Elizabeth Gilbert, J.K Rowling, Dan Brown, Robert Ludlum. I have read the books on writing style suggested by Stephen King, and other good books suggested online. My writing fits the description of the usual things but, still, the style based on spoken narrative is way different. It's very difficult to invent my own style which can match their styles, but I am trying to imitate their writing styles. The stories are different; I just mean the style. I think it's easier and will be acceptable to a large audience. So my question is, what are the advantages and disadvantages of copying the styles of established authors? <Q> Style isn't something you can copy in this way. <S> Style is more of a way of doing things. <S> Not a thing itself. <S> It would be saying, is it okay to copy how a singer you admire sings? <S> And yes, it is. <S> Because no matter how good of a mimic you are, you will never be that person. <S> You could even work as an impersonator, and that would be perfectly legal in the right context. <S> Nor are writing styles specific enough to steal. <S> One writer might use short terse sentences and another flowery prose. <S> One might prefer a page filled with SAT words, another might use a newspaper style. <S> Others might use uncommon styles like communicating in telegrams or writing in text speak. <S> So go right ahead. <S> As long as you aren't copying ideas (or plot or characters or names), you are probably just fine. <S> Your personal style will come through as you merge it with the ones that inspire you. <A> Inspired by @ashleylee, but then I was going into even more detail. <S> I think this CAN lead to being a mastery, but not if one ONLY copies ONE creator. <S> It's a good learning tool, but studying more styles gives one more options on how to approach any scenario. <S> Sometimes it may just be from immersion: I'm on an Arthur Conan Doyle non-Holmes kick right now via librivox.org , and that leads to my writing in a more formal style than when I am mostly reading online articles. <S> Sometimes it is direct imitation, just to see HOW did they do it? <S> If someone's writing handles an area <S> well you have trouble with, study and imitate how they do it, then ALSO see how others do it. <S> Like if you feel there's no "chemistry" between your own characters, find a few Romance authors who have that spark. <S> Maybe first imitate one of them in having your characters meet. <S> Then find a second author, and imitate that one closely. <S> See what was similar or different. <S> Maybe bring in a third romance one, maybe try for something from another genre that also has good character connections. <S> (Often TV Tropes, though it's a time-sink, can help you identify the tropes (or narrative tools and expectations) that are being used, if you can find your Template Story in there. <S> Or it can give you others to contrast with: <S> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BoyMeetsGirl and <S> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeetCute ) <S> Just remember: tropes are not bad, they're tools. <S> Other writers also developed their tools, and there are a lot of ways to do so. <S> If you learn well by taking something apart to put it together again, imitation can be an excellent way to gain that understanding of writing. <A> That's the advantage . <S> And most of us take on at least some aspects of the style of the writers we admire whether we want to or not. <S> But at the end of the day, you'll need to find our own style and your own voice. <S> Imitating styles can be a step in that direction --it will expand the number of tools in your writer's toolbox--, but it shouldn't be the final destination. <S> When you sound like someone else, you don't sound like yourself. <S> And that's the disadvantage . <A> Something nobody has yet mentioned: you might want to write your story as a tribute to another work. <S> For example, Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald is a tribute to Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. <S> It is in the language, the style, the way the story is told. <S> At the same time, it is unmistakably Gaiman: Conan Doyle could hardly have been a fan of Lovecraft. <S> Or, a different example: Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell , with its language, style, snark, even the illustrations, working hard to imitate Jane Austen or something else of that period. <S> It has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry. <S> Imagine then the interest that surrounded Miss Wintertowne! <S> No young lady ever had such advantages before: for she died upon the Tuesday, was raised to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and was married upon the Thursday; which some people thought too much excitement for one week. <S> What are the advantages of writing such tribute? <S> the intertextual connection enriches your work, it is your way to say something new while at the same time remembering and respecting the old. <S> It allows you to explore the existing work, find the things that make it unique, and employ them. <S> You get to intimately know that particular voice, while at the same time saying something that is uniquely yours. <S> You get to hold a conversation with an existing work. <S> As for finding your own voice, don't worry about it too much. <S> Eventually, you will. <S> Or rather, you find the right voice for the story you are currently writing, and then the next one, and the next, until it turns out that you have a voice that is your own, a sort of commonality between the stories you tell.

Imitating styles is a valuable learning tool . If you can write a tribute that is recognisably in the style of the author you wish to write a tribute to, think of it as a gift from an admirer. Plot, character descriptions, turns of phrase, are all things you can copy enough to get in trouble for it (either legal trouble or trouble from your readers).

Is this an oxymoron, and what would be the purpose of making seemingly illogical statements in writing? Here's a piece of writing I came up with: The rolling billows rocked the mighty galleon cradling it madly as if it were but a mere child. There are many seeming contradictions: When we think "billows rocked" we think of a powerful motion, "cradling" goes against that, and then "madly" goes against cradling and finally "as if it were but a mere child" goes completely against the idea of a powerful "rolling billow"? Is this just really bad style? It seems to have a poetic effect. Is there a way to leverage such inconsistencies to deliberately create this effect? And can it be used in novels, or only in poetry? <Q> Poetry forces us to see things in a different way, so it often uses language in ways that we wouldn't typically see in prose . <S> Grammar that is technically incorrect, words used in non-standard ways, deliberate misspellings, idiosyncratic punctuation, and odd juxtapositions are just a few of the "disruptions" occasionally practiced by poets. <S> In this case, the deliberate mixing of contrasting metaphors is actually fairly effective in conjuring up a vivid mental image -- the mind is forced to work just a little bit harder to find a way for it all to make sense. <S> It's quite common to occasionally use poetic techniques in prose writing. <S> But they are perhaps best used sparingly , since they can interfere with the literal transmission of information that is the central focus of prose. <A> I don't think it's an oxymoron. <S> Sure thing, you have chosen a strange mix of images to evoke - mainly due to the contrast between "cradling" and "rocked". <S> But as far as I read it, it's a legitimate metaphor: the ship in this case is not bigger than a child in a cradle compared to the storm outside. <S> The juxtaposion of the single elements may seem oxymoronic at first, but at large the "ship as a cradle" idea is not unheard of. <S> It's not even so illogical, it just requires a little stretch of imagination. <S> Is this just really bad style? <S> It seems to have a poetic effect. <S> Is there a way to leverage such inconsistencies to deliberately create this effect? <S> And can it be used in novels, or only in poetry? <S> I don't think it is, but then again it's opinions. <S> You are already leveraging the effect of the metaphor and contrasting images. <S> And yes, it could. <A> I know there are two answers and both of them are positive and one accepted but precisely because of that I wanted to give a negative one. <S> To me it feels overdone. <S> I feel you’re doing it by the shake of juxtaposing confronting images rather than by a desire to transmit a particular feeling or view. <S> You yourself express that on your doubts about the phrase itself. <S> You say “it seems to have a poetic effect”. <S> If you don’t know why, or what it is that you’re looking to convey, then you’re doing it by the shake of it. <S> The key concept here in my view is to create a third and that’s what makes it both poetic and beautiful. <S> That third concept is what, to me, is missing from your phrase. <S> It’s just not there. <S> To me it is about purpose, not form. <S> Had you said something like: <S> The rolling billows rocked the mighty galleon cradling it into the darkness pits of the ocean. <S> Then, to me at least, it works better as it really conveys the fact that the storm sunk the ship but the death was somehow peaceful. <S> That way, the juxtaposition of contradictory meanings conveys the image of a peaceful death on the middle of a terrible storm.

The meaning of Oxymoron is the juxtaposition of two seemingly contradictory concepts to create a third .

How to identify paper which will blot fountain pen ink? These days, with fewer people using a fountain pen to write, many notebooks/paper you find blotting the ink . If I am at a store and contemplating to buy a notebook or writing/printing paper, how can I check if the paper blots or not? Most of time, it is not mentioned on the notebook or ream itself and I cannot test by writing on it. Please note that I am talking about office supply retail chains where the staff cannot answer in detail. What is the best way to find out if paper of a notebook or paper will blot or not? I am specifically looking for some physical attributes of the paper which I can check without starting a longhand penmanship. <Q> I don't know whether this will help you or not, but the factor that determines whether a paper will blot ink (that is, whether it will draw ink into itself, letting the ink spread freely through the fibers, as opposed to letting the ink sit on the surface and dry, which is what you want especially for a wet-writing fountain pen) is what is called "sizing. <S> " <S> Sizing makes paper more water-resistant, so if you wanted a paper that blots well, you'd want a paper with as little sizing as possible. <S> But if you want a paper that a wet fountain pen will write on without bleeding, you want a paper with a decent amount of sizing. <S> As I understand it, sizing is usually some kind of glue -- either one derived from gelatin, or something else. <S> If this was mixed into the paper pulp during production, it will blot less. <S> Unfortunately, I don't know anything about whether papers at big office stores list any information about sizing or glue on their packages. <A> I'm a fountain pen user as well. <S> The only reliable way to know if a certain paper will work well, however, is to test a sample with your actual pen. <S> Stationery stores (as opposed to office supply stores like Staples) are likely to know ahead of time what papers will work for fountain or dip pens, but they'll also generally be happy to let you test a sample (or even have small pads of various papers made up for this purpose). <A> I read this question initially as "What paper is best to write on with a fountain pen?" <S> but on a re-read, I'm thinking it may instead be "What paper can I use for blotting my work written with a fountain pen? <S> " <S> Your use of the Wikipedia link to blotting paper is important (and funny, as I started to link to the same page). <S> As blotting paper behaves differently than paper upon which you write, I'd think the more absorbent the better so that your ink is blotted and you can continue your work. <S> Zeiss points out ink jet is absorbent for the printer's inks (and therefore bad to write upon) <S> but I think that for actual blotting, ink jet paper may even be preferable. <S> JetPens reviews inks, writing surfaces, and pens in great detail, and also sells blotting paper. <S> (I love them, that's my only disclosure) :)

If your pen isn't too wet, you can use almost any reasonably hard surface paper, but generally those made for ink jets will be problematic for wetter writing nibs, because the paper is made to quickly absorb the liquid component of the ink from a printer (xerographic paper often doesn't have this quality, so doesn't work as well in ink jet printers).

What are some good ways of switching from third-person limited point of view to third-person omniscient point of view? I am thinking of writing a short story which starts with a character narrating then ends up being narrated by an omniscient character. What are the best ways of making this transition? I can't think of any book that does it, let alone a short story. The logic gap would be such that it would create some discomfort to the reader. <Q> You are correct to be wary of POV changes <S> like you're describing. <S> This is (generally speaking) an even a bigger concern for a short story, where you have less space to establish these things. <S> One approach might be to essentially split the difference and go with a limited third person POV. <S> This would allow you be privy to all the character's thoughts, yet make it easier to describe the world around them. <S> But there is nothing inherently "wrong" with your original notion. <S> The best way to find out is simply to try it and see. <S> If your draft feels clumsy, you can always rewrite. <S> Many times writers will discover the POV they've initially chosen might be less optimal to another once they start drafting. <S> If it helps, you can draw attention to the POV change in some way, e.g., a paragraph space with asterisks. <S> I would also suggest making it clear right away that you've changed POV by referring to the main character in the third person as soon as possible. <A> POV characters are not required. <S> You can always tell your story from the perspective of an omniscient narrator/storyteller, and whenever necessary zoom into an internal (POV) dialogue/observation. <S> Btw... <S> what do you mean by a omniscient character? <S> do you mean a character in your story? <S> or just the narrator (which is usually not considered a character) <A> This is a stronger division than a chapter and is common in longer novels. <S> I've seen plenty that change the POV this way. <S> It's also used for generational changes. <S> Though sometimes it's done without much change at all. <S> But you're writing a short story. <S> Make your change after a small division such as a line of dots or pound signs across the page with line breaks after. <S> Be sure to state the transition. <S> As George left the village in search of adventure, he set into motion events not only with his travels but also back at the village. <S> His mother was so upset at his leaving that... <S> Another method would be for the narrator to address the reader. <S> This would only work in certain stories. <S> Once George decided to rescue the knight, it was all he could think about. <S> How to get past the dragon, how to scale the wall, how to exit the castle. <S> Explaining himself was one task too many, so I will tell you the rest of this tale. <A> You need to change more than just the narrator <S> As I understand it based on your question and comments; you want a character to narrate in third person for 1/2-2/3 of the story, then switch to an older version of the same character to narrate the conclusion. <S> This is feasible but needs to be done careful. <S> The first thing you will need is a clear segmentation between the two. <S> This should be the biggest break in your story; Book One, Book Two as Cyn suggests is good for a novel, a page break or multiple line break may be enough for a short story. <S> With the break established you need to provide the new context for the narration. <S> Make the passage of time clear, maybe through a shift in tense or similar. <S> Another consideration is to link the new narrator to the old, use distinctive phrasing or narrative style to make it clear that we know this narrator. <S> It may a good idea to end the first part on a major story-shaping event. <S> Something dramatic that it would make sense for the character to reflect on years later. <S> Example <S> Jack pumped the brakes again, still no effect. <S> The cliff edge was approaching faster now. <S> He looked over to Jill and saw the terror in her eyes as the car plunged over the cliff. <S> When Jack looks back on that moment, he realises how lucky he was to survive the crash. <S> Jill spent three months in hospital while he..... etc.

The important page is to make it clear that the context for narration has changed. In a novel you could make a Book One vs Book Two split.

Could I have some characters reveal more internal monologue than others? For context, I am writing a graphic novel. I always used to imagine I would have some characters (mainly protagonists) reveal their internal monologue while others (mainly the antagonists) don't. They just express themselves with speech/actions. I wanted to do this for a number of reasons, one being I wanted some character's intentions to be hidden for awhile. I then realized this might seem like favoritism of certain characters and lead to the story seeming more black-and-white. I thought one way to combat this (to an extent) is to allow all characters to reveal internal monologue, but some reveal all of theirs while others reveal less to varying degrees (maybe on a situational basis, such as only when they alone in their room). I worry though that readers might get frustrated or confused by the inconsistency. Is that something I should actually be concerned about or not? If so, what would you recommend I do instead? If you disagree about what I said regarding favoritism, let me know as well. <Q> By their very nature as being main characters, your main characters would receive more attention than side characters. <S> That's what makes them 'main'. <S> It's their arc that we follow, it's their motivations that we know <S> , it's them we care about and sympathise with. <S> Take <S> The Lord of the Rings as a famous example: we know what goes on in Frodo's head, also in Sam's, a bit less of Merry and Pippin. <S> We see a lot of Aragorn, Boromir and Gandalf, but what goes on in their heads we must infer from their actions. <S> As for Legolas and Gimli - those characters remain virtually undeveloped. <S> (And that's just the members of the Fellowship.) <S> That's as it should be. <S> The story is the story of certain particular characters - the main ones. <S> Other characters are prominent in that story, but it's not their story. <S> Yet others walk into the story for a spell, then walk out of it again. <S> You cannot tell the story of each and every character in your universe. <S> If you try to do that, if all the characters are 'main', the story would disappear - one wouldn't be able to see the forest for the trees. <S> Of course, that isn't to say that minor characters shouldn't have motivation of their own. <S> It's just that we would see less of them, know less of them, and must infer who they are from the little we see. <S> To continue with the Lord of the Rings example, Faramir is a fascinating character: he has motivation (Gondor), he has his own conflicts - his story could be a fascinating one. <S> But we don't get to follow his story - we don't see him grieving for his brother, we don't know whether he blamed himself or his father for the fact that Boromir went to Rivendell instead of him, we can only imagine what his life growing up was like, or who his friends were. <S> All we see is as much of his story as crosses paths with the hobbits. <S> That's the way it's supposed to be. <A> This is true of children and cats: They're all my favorites because I love them equally. <S> But this one is my special favorite. <S> It's also true of characters. <S> In a real life situation where you're supposed to love everyone equally, you wouldn't treat them all the same, would you? <S> Extra lap time is a treat for one kitty but annoying for another. <S> Ditto for a human child getting to go shopping with mom. <S> Don't show everyone's thoughts. <S> Let the reader work a bit. <S> Show a few here <S> and there, as suits the story. <S> In my novel, I'm mostly in my MC's head <S> but I have a secondary character whose head I explore in a couple chapters. <S> If I spent time in everyone's head (or even the main 6-8 people), I'd drive myself crazy before the reader even got to be driven crazy. <S> It's not inconsistent to focus more on one character than another. <S> It's expected and normal. <S> Even authors who go inside the heads of multiple characters will pick and choose. <A> Welcome! <S> ANSWER: <S> You can do this any way you choose. <S> But additionally, the idea of secrets is a good one, when done well. <S> It keeps tension. <S> I encourage you to work these into your story in one form or another. <S> In other words, give everyone internal monolog, but only give important thoughts to the ones I choose. <S> And this should be guided by the characters' personalities, too. <S> Luna Lovegood's internal monolog will be quite different from Albus Dumbledore's, and will serve a different purpose.

I'd personally handle this by using internal monolog to provide lots of internal thought and keep the important nuggets to the characters that I want. It's not favouritism that some characters get more spotlight than others. Do not let worries about "what will readers think" stop your creative process in this moment.

Characters jumping out of their stories I just read an article online and thought "this is great, I should forward the link to Phoebe." Phoebe is one of my characters. I've already had characters tell me how they would speak or dress, what their underlying motivations are, or who they are when they grow up (the main action takes place when they're teens/pre-teens in 1995, so they're in their 30's now). In some ways, that's similar to the question Characters that take on a life of their own . But that's still within the story. Now my characters are jumping out of the story and worming their way into my life. What's the best way to channel, handle, or survive this part of the writing process? <Q> Question : <S> What's the best way to channel, handle, or survive this part of the writing process? <S> Answer <S> : Keep a notebook handy. <S> Always. <S> And, set aside time to spend with that character. <S> But additionally, set time aside for the other characters too. <S> Give them one-on-one time. <S> Your truest thoughts. <S> However, the other characters are within you too, and given some coaxing they might share some very valuable insight. <S> Quiet insight. <S> But secondarily, don't be afraid to <S> direct the strong characters. <S> Put them in situations they don't want to be in. <S> Insist they have conversations with the people they'd rather avoid. <S> You're in charge. <S> It is nice when a character is opinionated, but that doesn't mean they get to write the story. <A> If I were you, I would write a book about a writer who worries she is losing her mind when she begins interacting with her characters as though they were real people. <S> That's a book I would buy if you wrote it! <S> As advice to the real-life version of you, however, I would say, don't worry about it. <S> We all have many people living rent-free inside our heads --alternate versions of our selves, or copies of real people who have had significant impacts on our lives. <S> You just happen to be more in contact with it than most people. <S> For a writer, it's hard to not see this as an advantage. <S> I wouldn't worry about it as any sort of a sign of mental illness or anything. <S> Although, as I said earlier, it would be fun to read a book about a writer who does worry about that (or about a writer who really is mentally ill, or about a magical realist version, where the characters actually do intrude into real life). <A> You're describing a habit of thought. <S> You've spent a lot of time developing your characters, so you may have also developed the habit of thinking about them as their own personalities, like memories of someone you know but haven't talked to in a very long time. <S> Of course you know they're nothing more than fictional characters, but the human mind will form habits if it does things often enough. <S> Actors have a similar issue when the qualities of the characters they play during a long film production seep over to their regular lives simply because they've developed a habit of thinking, feeling and behaving in character. <S> The solution is to consciously put Phoebe back in her box. <S> Whenever this happens, think to yourself, "No, I'm putting my fictional characters away until I choose to think about them."

The characters that arrive fully-formed may well be a part of yourself that is within your core personality.

Are there situations where using an anastrophe is ill-advised? I wrote a (unrhymed) couplet, because I couldn't find a good enough example: She ran the comb through her hair ebony As the night fell upon the land of light. Is there a situation where reversing the natural word order is ill-advised or completely wrong. In this simple situation, I don't think there's anything wrong. Also, is this considered good style? <Q> It just makes things harder to read and understand. <S> In your example, the meaning is clear, but there's nothing about it that makes it preferable to the more standard "ebony hair." <S> There could be many possible "good reasons" to invert word order. <S> With that said, the fact that you couldn't find any actual examples argues against this being a widely useful practice. <S> I've only ever heard this used in poetry, typically to make rhyme or rhythm work out, or in imitation of a language where this is standard (like French or Spanish). <S> Even in poetry, I would use it only sparingly. <S> There's a real difference between indulging in the additional freedoms available to a poet ("poetic license") in the service of the sound of a passage, and abusing them in the belief that breaking the rules is itself intrinsically poetic. <A> Is there a situation where reversing the natural word order is ill-advised or completely wrong. <S> Yes. <S> Consider a simple sentence such as "Mary ate an apple. <S> " Using anastrophe, you could write this as subject-object-verb ("Mary an apple ate"), object-subject-verb ("an apple Mary ate") or even object-verb-subject ("an apple ate Mary"). <S> The last one is a bit dodgy but you could probably get away with using any of them, if you had a good reason to: the key point is that nobody's going to assume you're talking about a man-eating apple. <S> But now consider "Cain murdered Abel". <S> Rewrite it as "Abel murdered Cain" and you've completely changed the meaning: everyone will assume that Abel is now the murderer. <S> Rewrite it as " <S> Cain Abel murdered" and who knows how many people will assume subject-object-verb and object-subject-verb. <S> That's ill-advised <S> and I'd suggest that "Abel murdered Cain" is so ill-advised that it's completely wrong. <A> You asked (or stated): <S> Is there a situation where reversing the natural word order is ill-advised or completely wrong. <S> Not absolutely! <S> And by that, mean I, no of the absolute kind. <S> :) <S> I think anastrophe would best be used in technical documentation. <S> Things like: <S> Window appears, click OK button do or do not. <S> Save your settings, it may, but if button clicked then settings may instead not be unsaved. <S> Click button do not, saving the settings, or exiting without saving. <S> Plus there is the benefit of the user not knowing whether she is to blame for not saving her settings because she doesn't understand the instructions or there is a bug in the system <S> so this is advantageous. <S> Note <S> : I couldn't resist this one because anastrophe is a great word (thanks to be introducing me to that one). <S> Here's my serious answer. <S> Why, in poetry, would there be any reason against anastrophe? <S> Maybe only because of overuse. <S> Nothing should be overused. <S> So anastrophe-on and keep on anastrophing. <S> The effect is quite poetic and may allow the poetry to become more rhythmic and pleasant to the ear. <S> It may also create interesting interpretations of the meaning.

It's never good style to depart from standard usage without a good reason . So there are certainly cases where anastrophe completely obscures the meaning of the sentence.

How do I stop using 'the' to start sentences so much? Something that always bothers me in my writing is how often I start sentences with the word "the". A terrible nonsensical example: The dog ran through the rain-swept streets, chasing a ball he thought he'd lost. The ball was just ahead of him, always out of reach. The ball was a dull red colour, difficult to see through the rain. The dog was gaining on it, slowly but surely. Note: this isn't an extract of something I've written but a quick sample to demonstrate the problem. Answers that only deal with restructuring this particular paragraph are not useful. I'm not concerned with the quality of my writing overall. I know that's something that will improve with time and practice. This also isn't about overuse of "the" in general, which would be a duplicate of this question . What techniques can I use to prevent myself from starting sentences with "the"? <Q> Start with a word ending in 'ing'. <S> e.g. Opening the door, he stepped into the dark. <S> Chasing a ball he thought he'd lost, the dog ran through the rain-swept streets. <S> e.g. At the time of the incident she was in London. <S> Through the rain the ball was difficult to see. <S> Start with an adverb. <S> e.g. Yesterday, the murderer felt guilt. <S> Slowly but surely the dog was gaining on it. <S> Begin with a subordinating conjunction (so a subordinate clause). <S> e.g. Although he was starving, the man refused to eat. <S> Because it was raining, the dog got wet. <S> Write a passive sentence <S> i.e. object + verb. <S> e.g. All the chocolates were eaten. <A> I suggest you continue to write however the words come out. <S> Because the last thing you want to do is feel like you can't write unless it's perfect (or better). <S> Every day, go through a paragraph or two of your work and use S. Mitchell's excellent suggestions to revise it. <S> As time goes on, your revisions will be quicker because—in addition to being better at revising—you'll find that some of the work won't need revisions. <S> You'll start to rethink sentence structure automatically. <S> You'll still have to revise your work; we all do! <S> But, with more time and practice, this is another way that your writing will improve. <A> I think you are a non-native speaker (just like me), and you are using the thought patterns the grammar of your mother language to write in English. <S> One thing that will help a lot is to read a lot. <S> I took a two-month hiatus in my writing to read a ton of other novels in the same genre to pick up on how to make my writing feel more natural. <S> You can count on the reader's intellect to keep the phrases together as they infer their meaning. <S> Your quote: The dog ran through the rain-swept streets, chasing a ball he thought he'd lost. <S> The ball was just ahead of him, always out of reach. <S> The ball was red, difficult to see through the rain. <S> The dog was gaining on it, slowly but surely. <S> Could convey the same meaning: Chasing a ball he thought <S> lost, the dog ran through the rain-swept streets. <S> It was just ahead of him but always out of reach, its red form blurred by the rain. <S> But he was slowly and surely gaining on it. <S> We identify the dog by 'he' in the first sentence, so when we say 'it' later, it refers to the ball. <S> This way we avoid the second the . <S> I moved the context of the scene and the conflict up front to make the reader position themselves before the protagonist is revealed, almost avoiding the first the . <S> Joining the third sentence into the second and adding some flow into the fourth statement and there goes all the 'the' at the beginnings. <S> The third sentence is also a little case of show vs tell. <S> We are already talking about the ball, and we can assume the rain is heavy (it is sweeping the streets) <S> and we know it is hard to see things in heavy rain. <S> Therefore we can surmise the color of the ball and the visibility issue with fewer words. <A> In addition to the excellent answers above, after you've completed a large chunk or the entire draft, use a grammar checker like grammarly or prowritingaid which check for repetition. <S> I use adverbs to start sentences a lot, and using the grammar checker <S> showed me how many and where <S> and I was able to use the techniques others mentioned to fix it. <S> They also give suggestions of their own. <S> After doing this a few times, it starts to become more natural when writing drafts to start sentences in varied ways. <A> Remember that the or the dog are words to highlight a specific thing, and that much of the time you can use sentence structure or the reader's imagination to know what you're referring to without having to be specific. <S> Chasing through the rain-swept streets ran the dog. <S> He thought he'd lost it, but now the ball was just ahead of him, always out of reach. <S> Rain clouded the streets, so he could barely see. <S> Slowly but surely he was gaining on it, Or even dog through the rain-swept streets lost ball chasing, always just ahead always out of reach. <S> red hard to see through the rain. <S> fast sprinting gaining slowly but surely soon in mouth. <S> Ovbiously there are limits to this unless you're James Joyce, but English is a very flexible language in sentence structure. <A> This method can work in any of your sentences. <S> Let's take the first sentence in your paragraph as an example. <S> You can do this with any other sentence: <S> The dog ran through the rain-swept streets, chasing a ball he thought he'd lost. <S> Instead of this 3rd person view, you can "come closer". <S> Droplets of rain dotted the heavy-breathing dog's fur as he chased the ball he thought he'd lost. <S> This way, you make it more personal with the dog. <S> you make it easier to picture in your reader's mind <S> and you also get rid of the "the" ;) <S> I love doing this with my writing. <S> I always try to understand how to make it more personal. <A> Some words, including "the" and "I" are so ubiquitous they become invisible, which means frequent use is not a problem.

I would suggest reading more English poetry to pick up some techniques. Adding to the collection of amazing answers already written here, I would advise you to restructure your sentences to express a more personal view after you have already written them. Start with a preposition (so a prepositional phrase).

Is using an online name generator a good idea? When I'm stumped for a planet name or an organization name or something, I usually search on Google for a free name generator. But are the names in random generators copyrighted? If I used a generated name in a published work, would I have to credit the generator? Is using a generator even a good idea, or could I somehow get slammed for plagiarism? <Q> As far is legal rights are concerned, no, names generated by a generator are not copyrighted, nothing similar. <S> Consider: a random string generator producing random letter combinations of random lengths could theoretically produce every word in the dictionary. <S> One cannot copyright those, right? <S> A name generator is only a little more complex than manually flipping open a dictionary at a random page and pointing your finger at a random word. <S> Would you have to credit the dictionary, if you used it this way? <S> Is taking words from a dictionary "plagiarism"? <S> (Whether using an online name generator is a good idea from a creative point of view <S> is a different question entirely, and a separate one.) <A> I find them helpful, but often wrong. <S> I used one that has different ethnic groups to get ideas for names. <S> Always always Google the name that comes up. <S> Some of the "girl names" turned out to be used only for boys (sometimes it went the other way). <S> Names said to be Egyptian turned out to be Hebrew. <S> Names said to be Hebrew turned out to be Yiddish. <S> In some cases, the names were of famous/known people (but not celebrities). <S> In zero cases (out of maybe 100 names I Googled from the generator) did I discover the name came from a specific copyrighted work. <S> As for credit, no, you do not need to credit it as a source. <S> The generator either spits back names loaded into it with particular tags or it creates names based on certain algorithms. <S> The programmer does not own the names. <S> You can not copyright a name. <S> Don't use well-known names that are unique but <S> the legal issues for random names aren't something to worry about. <S> Google is your friend though. <S> Find out where the name comes from and proceed accordingly. <A> Are randomly generated names copyrighted? <S> ... <S> maybe. <S> A random algorithm can generate a sequence of alphabetic characters which spell out a copyrighted name. <S> Beyond those legal failings, random name generators also waste the incredible opportunity which naming provides an author. <S> Names, like every other word which describes a character (or planet or corporation), should help the reader visualize and understand the entity it is attached too. <S> Subtle meanings can be hidden in names which can give readers a clue as to how this might evolve. <S> If your hero has a trusted assistant named Judas, your readers might be hesitant to share your hero's trust in that man. <S> This can lead them to accurately predict or completely misread upcoming events in the story to very entertaining affect. <S> Don't waste your naming opportunities on a random throw of the dice. <S> Pick up a thesaurus and let your creativity free. <A> As Henry Taylor pointed out, using a random name generator does not protect you from copyright violations. <S> But I think the thing you more need to worry about is if it violates a trademark. <S> This might not seem like a big distinction, but they're two different types of IP, and they're enforced in different ways. <S> I'm not a lawyer, so all I can say is you may want to look into whatever names you use to see if they could be a problem. <S> It's usually not a real concern, even in the litigious US, but in the rare cases when it can be, it can be quite a big deal. <S> For example, don't name your mouse-like character after a certain very well-known mouse. <S> But you probably already knew that one. <S> That said, using a random name generator generally won't open you up to more problems than just picking a name out of thin air, especially if you've spent too much time watching Disney's IP. <S> Disney is, of course, a registered trademark of Disney.

The fact that the name was randomly generated neither guarantees that it is not copyrighted, nor protects you from the consequences of violating that copyright or trademark.

Sentence starters for summaries? I'm writing a technical book (step-by-step sort of book) and noticed that all my summaries start with 'In this chapter we ...'. What would be some other sentence starters that I could use to make the summaries more interesting? <Q> "Now it's time to talk about... <S> " <S> "Next we will cover..." <S> "We talked about..." <S> However, I would suggest that such variation may be unnecessary, especially in a technical context. <S> Consistency and repetition can help with clarity; if you always start with "In this chapter we...", then your readers will be familiar with that phrase. <S> By using the same phrases and structures for the same purpose, over the course of the book you'll set up an expectation on the reader's part about how to read a chapter summary. <A> In my documentation I tend to use a "sentence starter" such as "The following topics describe..." for topics that wrap subtopics that might be considered reference material, and (borrowing from section III 10 of The Elements of Style here) an "opening sentence that simply indicates by its subject with what the following topics are to be principally concerned." <S> Essentially, this means that you simply start writing the material and introduce it that way. <S> Over time as I have developed more material that primarily lives online, I tend to use the latter because online documentation systems tend to have a table of contents (TOC) built into it that is always visible. <S> In that case, you do not need to write a listing into the parent topic because the TOC does the work for you. <S> You can see what the chapter contains by simply glancing at the TOC. <S> In converting older publications to this format, I notice that I end up removing a lot of this kind of material. <S> On the other hand, if you are publishing a printed book, a listing can be very useful. <A> I imagine that there is a broader issue with the style of such summaries. <S> The journal typically imposes a strict limit on the number of words. <S> You may notice that the style is typically extremely terse, with very precise language and devoid of any unnecessary language. <S> In your specific case, I give you some suggestions on how to change the sentence "in this chapter we present the methods to hammer a nail": <S> straight to the point: "hammering a nail can be achieved by... <S> " <S> name the topic: " <S> Hammering a nail. <S> Various techniques include..." justify the topic: "Wood structures can be held together by nails. <S> Hammering is a widespread technique to place nails. <S> This can be achieved by..." the click bait lesson "The hammer trick. <S> Place a nail on the board and hit it repeatedly." <A> Depending on what you're writing, a simple heading of Summary: followed by your text could be sufficient.

I'd suggest reading abstracts from articles on the subject.

Finding resources for sci-fi writers on Quantum Mechanics I don't have the financial resources to hire a scientific consultant to ask him whether my science-fiction plot is realistic, so I was wondering if there were any resource that teach Quantum Mechanic without the math well enough so that aspiring authors can write realistic science-fiction books. The best would be a video tutorial that doesn't cover the math aspect, is scientifically accurate, doesn't simplify thing and doesn't lead to false beliefs that you find out about after taking a real course on it (as much as possible). Also, can we not migrate it to a Physics stackexchange, because it's likely to be closed and I am sure aspiring science-fiction writers would find this question useful. <Q> You insist the question is not about Science, and not about Worldbuilding – since you've posted it here <S> I will treat it strictly as a Writing question. <S> I was wondering if there were any resource that teach Quantum Mechanic without the math well enough so that aspiring authors can write realistic science-fiction books. <S> The best would be a video tutorial that doesn't cover the math aspect, is scientifically accurate, doesn't simplify thing and doesn't lead to false beliefs that you find out about after taking a real course on it (as much as possible). <S> I paraphrase: <S> How do I learn just enough (science) to sound like I know what I'm talking about, but nothing more? <S> And also I don't want to have any false ideas from the gaps in my knowledge. <S> This is a Catch-22. <S> There are no shortcuts. <S> You must learn enough to know what you don't know, or you must avoid discussing it in-depth, probably both. <S> Since you give us no details, and no measure of "realistic", we can't tell you how much knowledge is enough for your story. <S> Youtube is not a community college, but The Royal Institution has been hosting science lectures for over 200 years, and their Physics Playlist has great talks. <S> Stick with accredited universities or legitimate science foundations. <S> It still begs a broader question: how to research science as a science fiction writer . <S> Typing " science " into the searchbar offers over 1000 results. <S> Here are some examples from the first 2 pages: Researching Future Technology for a Science Fiction Novel <S> Can a person get bogged down by science fiction research? <S> Rewriting a scifi story to fit with actual science, should I do it as I go? <S> When writing science fiction, how important is it to provide scientific details for the (fictitious) things you are presenting in the story? <S> In Science Fiction, how does one do research, but write at the same time? <A> What is your target audience and what is your purpose? <S> Do you look to entertain your audience or also teach them? <S> What’re your average reader science skills. <S> Most people do not know (or care) much about quantum mechanics or physics in general. <S> If those are your target audience and you don’t intend to teach them, then learn enough plausible concepts to move your story along. <S> If your average reader is, let’s say, hardcore sci-fi reader with advanced physics knowledge <S> then there’s only one way to go. <S> You’ll need to learn more than your average reader knows. <S> There’s no fooling this part, you can’t fool someone that knows more than you do, you either hire that knowledge or you get that knowledge yourself <S> , there’s no faking it. <S> I can tell from miles away when someone doesn’t know what he’s talking about on my area of expertise, and I can pretty much judge their level of knowledge after a 2 or 3 hour chat <S> (I call it an interview :P). <S> So the question is, what’s your average reader like? <A> Internet is a trove of information. <S> https://www.khanacademy.org/science/physics/quantum-physics <S> I haven't checked this one, but from prior experience with other subjects I'd expect it to be rather easy to follow, with plenty of cartoonish illustrations and simple examples.

In more than one occasion I've found Khanacademy to be a good place to jump start a subject.

How do some self-published books on Amazon get lots of sales without any marketing whatsoever? I get confused with this whole indie-publishing thing in terms of the advice I keep hearing from experts. On one hand, people say that no matter how great your book is, no one is going to read it or even know it exists if you don’t market it. On the other hand, I sometimes come across bloggers who brag about how a book they put up anonymously on Amazon got thousands of sales without them doing any marketing for it whatsoever. Okay, how did that happen? And then there are some popular authors who say that marketing isn’t necessary; all you have to do is keep writing and producing great books and that’s how you’ll be successful. But how will people see these great books in the first place if you don’t market them? I can understand why people say that no one will see your book no matter how awesome it is if you don’t promote it and get reviews for it: Because books are displayed on Amazon pages according to their popularity and sales ranking. Therefore, when you first publish a book and it doesn’t yet have sales or reviews, it gets dumped right at the very end where people will have to click through hundreds of pages in order to get to even see it. And Amazon deliberately makes it difficult for people to navigate the pages and see other books. They provide only one button that clicks to the next page. They don’t provide any options for page skipping or page number selection. I think they do this on purpose to force authors to pay for ads. But then how do you explain the cases where books sell lots of copies despite being published without any marketing or promotion? How did people see them in the first place? Was it because of just sheer lottery luck where some person happened to persistently navigate through hundreds of pages right down to the dump region and just happened to see the book, and the person happened to have tons of friends/followers they wanted to share the book with? Is that what happens in cases like that? <Q> Are they truly not marketed? <S> They in fact are often marketed, though not in the conventional way! <S> There are lots of sites out there that are used to advertise e-books on various e-book marketers, often by placing free chapters or short stories there. <S> If a person likes the style, these reading samples often contain a link to the full book on Amazon in the back. <S> Others publish short teaser novels with samples of how it goes on, which again, contain a link to the next full book on Amazon, though that you got to pay for. <S> Prolific Works is such a site, distributing loads off samples and enrolling the people into mailing lists to advertise the books for very little marketing effort. <S> Then there is the Amazon engine - if you read one book's synopsis, it seeks through its tag-and-content-cloud, offering you similar books as people who looked at this also looked at . <S> These suggestions can drive a lot of sales, as they are easy to just add to the shopping cart. <S> If your book is similar to a lot of other well-selling books, then your work is shown often, driving sales. <A> People who call themselves experts aren't usually experts. <S> Those bloggers bragging about how they just put a book on Amazon and it sells like gangbusters? <S> They're leaving out part of the process. <S> Maybe that "anonymous" name they're using is the same as one from an author that sold very well (could be their own book, or not). <S> Maybe the book got found by someone who promoted it for them (and they're not counting that as marketing cause they didn't pay for it or do it themselves). <S> Maybe it's blind luck. <S> Or maybe they're just lying to get you to buy a book or hire them with the promise that you can do this yourself. <S> I know people who have self-published on Amazon. <S> If they sell a couple dozen copies, they do happy dances. <S> Thousands of paid sales (vs free downloads) is a pipe dream. <S> Of course it happens, but only rarely to unknown authors without an internet following (like Andy Weir). <S> Because the majority of Amazon offerings are from unknown self-published authors, once you do get a few sales, you're further ahead. <S> Also, Amazon tends to have fairly specific categories. <S> A friend of mine once was 85th in her category (a category I'd never even heard of) <S> after selling about a dozen copies. <S> Sometimes though, people get lucky. <S> Then they roll with it. <S> It's rare and not something you can ever count on. <A> Just because you don’t see the marketing doesn’t mean the marketing is not there. <S> Those bloggers usually have other means to market their book. <S> Take the case of the “The subtle art of not giving a fuck”. <S> Self published and top seller. <S> You may wonder how that came to be... <S> Well it wasn’t Mark <S> ’s first book. <S> Previous one was published and sold only on his website. <S> Even that one was published only after having written on his blog for a long time. <S> I followed Mark Manson blog for about ten years. <S> I saw it grow from a thousand or so readers to over several hundred thousands. <S> More so, those readers knew his style, the way he wrote, commented on the articles and share his posts on Facebook or twitter (myself included). <S> When he published his book he was also doing writing for some prestigious magazines and blogs. <S> By the time he published his book... do you really think he needed traditional marketing? <S> Of course not, he had something a lot better than a marketing agency. <S> He had followers. <S> Better yet, he had a critical mass of followers that would transmit the book and give positive reviews and share it on social media. <S> You say marketing <S> and you think on traditional marketing but <S> that’s no longer the big selling check that you needed to check, social media, viral campaigns, followers and influencers... sadly or not, that’s what marketing is about nowadays. <S> Final note, obviously this only works because the book and all his previous writing is really good, bad products don’t sell, not over this kind of marketing. <A> One thing to be aware of is that some authors "game" the Amazon system. <S> That is, they'll "buy" reads and reviews, through online services that use automation to "read" books through Kindle Unlimited (the author gets paid by the page read, and "reads" are counted the same way), and make reviews from those same KU accounts. <S> This form of fraud is seldom punished by Amazon, and leads to books riding up the sales ranks, which gets them listed higher in a reader's recommendations and therefore gets more legitimate sales. <S> Never mind that it's probably a crime, only Amazon could pursue those who play the game this way. <S> Cheating the system in this way can lead to a book from a previously unknown author getting into the Amazon Top 100 before any actual readers have had a chance to read it -- and being in the Top 100 will in itself often guarantee high sales. <S> If the underying book is even halfway decent, very few of those buyers will return the book for a refund, with the result that the author has, in effect, bought themselves a bunch of money by using unorthodox (and possibly illegal) "marketing" methods.

So no, there’s a lot of marketing behind those self published books, just not of the traditional kind.

Is it true that writers don't really need agents and they can just query publishers directly, as Dean Wesley Smith says? While I tend to agree with the writer & publishing guru, Dean Wesley Smith, that agents are usually a liability and that it is wrong for writers to hand over their royalties to them, I am not sure about the part where he says they are totally unnecessary for submitting your work to publishers. Because it seems to me that that is the one thing that agents are actually useful for: acting as filters or slush-readers for the publishers. According to him, writers can actually ignore the injunction on the big publishers' websites that says 'no unagented submissions' and simply submit their queries anyway, and they often do with good results. In other words, in spite of what they say on their websites, the big publishers actually DO read queries and take work from unknown writers directly. I'd like to know if this is really true. Any insiders here that can confirm this? Dean has many years of insider experience in the publishing industry and seems to know what he's talking about. But I am still unsure as to just how true it is that editors in these big publishing houses actually read and respond to queries directly from writers in spite of what they say on their websites. <Q> This isn't something I have done, so I cannot comment on whether ignoring the submission guidelines on a publisher's website can be successful, but it isn't something I would risk doing. <S> You will find just as many authors advising that ignoring submission guidelines on any website - agent or publisher - is a sure-fire route to the trash pile. <S> Some smaller houses do accept unsolicited submissions, but if you're looking for a big six deal, you need an agent. <S> Agents don't just filter the slush pile. <S> If you secure a good agent, they will have many contacts in the industry and know the commissioning editors personally. <S> They will know the right fit for your manuscript and target appropriately. <S> How will you submit unsolicited? <S> Take Penguin Random House as an example. <S> They explicitly state that they do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. <S> They give no submission guidelines, so how will you even know what to submit as a professional query? <S> Also, they list their management staff but not their commissioning editors. <S> So, how will you know who to target your manuscript at, which editor is looking for your type of book? <S> What will you do? <S> Send it with no recipient to the house and hope the receptionist finds a commissioning editor for you? <S> Securing a deal. <S> Also, agents also have the capacity to handle multiple submissions at one time, multiple offers (should that happen), bidding wars, and the sale of international and film rights. <S> They are there to secure the best possible deal for you and ensure that the contract you sign protects the rights that you wish to retain. <S> Getting you ready. <S> A good agent will also help you hone your manuscript so that it's ready for submission. <S> Bear in mind that Dean Wesley Smith is nearly 70 years old. <S> The industry was a very different place when he was submitting as an unknown author and in a very specific genre. <S> I'd be interested if anyone suggests you should take this route. <S> Personally, I wouldn't recommend it. <S> Good luck! <A> The one book I placed with a big-name publisher is one I sold directly, without an agent. <S> So yes, it can be done . <S> And in fact, I've found publishers to be more responsive than agents <S> --although <S> that's just one person's anecdotal experience, of course. <S> I think that's especially true for less commercial or more niche books. <S> The right publisher might do one as a passion project, but there just isn't the margin there for the agent to bite. <S> An agent is going to prefer a good, commercially viable, mass-audience book. <S> However, as the years have gone by, I've come to understand the value of an agent by virtue of not having one. <S> It can be helpful to have someone who knows the publishing business well, and who has time to have brunch with editors, and who has a financial stake in making sure your book does well. <S> A lot of it depends on your own personality, but if you don't WANT to be your own agent, 15% is not too much to pay to outsource a lot of those things . <S> I feel like a lot more could have been done just with my one book --translations, animated adaptations, anniversary editions, or even just getting my rights back <S> --if <S> I'd had the right person in my corner. <S> For those reasons, I'm targeting agents, not publishers, for my current projects. <S> It's worth noting, however, that it's possible to get the publisher first, and then the agent . <S> Most agents won't turn down a guaranteed sale like that, and you'll be getting someone whom you know has a good connection to at least one publisher. <A> My agent at Wordwise Media found a publisher (Writer's Digest Books) for my book <S> The Editor's Companion and was confident enough to request a substantial advance. <S> I thought we would never cover the advance, and I didn't want the publisher to lose money on my book. <S> But my agent knew what he was doing, and the book covered the advance and is still paying royalties about five years later. <S> I could have tried to find a publisher myself, but I don't know whether the book would even have gotten published without my agent, so to me a good agent is well worth the money.

Just ask the publisher to recommend a good agent that they like working with to represent you, after they've already accepted your manuscript.

Scene & Sequel in exposition or world building I have been trying to practice the scene and sequel structure, including the use of MRUs and I find it alternately natural and frustrating. I understand that the goal of this structure is to keep the story moving, but I've seen some pretty extreme opinions expressed about it. One was to write the chapter with your creative juices flowing and then edit it down until it contains nothing but this structure. That works for many things, but I struggle to reconcile it with world building or exposition. I like to do the world building as part of the action, but occasionally you need to create a description of something. This is where I get stuck. I don't see world building description fitting the MRU model at all. It doesn't line up with motivation or reflex at all and seems to only partly line up with feeling or rational thought/speech. I can see that it probably has no place whatsoever in scenes, but if sequels have the same micro-structure, then I'm lost. Does world building sit outside this structure altogether, or should it be somehow linked to the sequel (I'm thinking after, before the next scene starts)? Or maybe my idea of the scale of these things is out of whack. Note: Scene-and-sequel is a writing technique developed by Dwight Swain, wherein a book is divided into alternating segments of incident and reaction. MRUs are "Motivation-Reaction Units," a more granular part of the same theory. <Q> Exposition and worldbuilding are external to the character. <S> They are the objective truths about the environment or situation, therefore they probably only fit in the scene-half of Scene & Sequel . <S> The idea of creating the "perfect scene" is to only include exposition relevant to the "Goal, Conflict, or Disaster", in other words: exposition and worldbuilding set-up the situation. <S> MRUs (motivation and reaction) are internal to the character. <S> This is the sequel-half where the character takes action, feels, or reacts as a direct result of the situation. <S> This reaction is subjective and unique for each character. <S> Exposition and worldbuilding do not belong here. <S> They are deliberately not part of the sequel because they interrupt the action and break the emotional impact of what is happening right now. <S> If you find exposition and worldbuilding are difficult to squeeze in, that is the Scene & Sequel method working as intended. <A> Certain styles and techniques suit different authors. <S> I am more of a discovery writer and take the write with your creative juices flowing to heart. <S> We are all students, but we also have something to learn from each other. <S> One thing I learned through horsemanship was that wisdom could come from anyone and it was my job to listen, assess and if I agreed, incorporate it into my riding or training. <S> This is applicable with writing. <S> There are many theories, many methods. <S> Learn from each and you will find yourself creating your own method that is natural to your style because it is yours. <S> I was reading an article written by a prominent author who said he wrote his first draft and submitted it to his publisher. <S> He took a copy and brought it for critique. <S> In his experience, rewriting and editing reduced the quality of his work. <S> He trusted his first instinct, that enthusiastic energy that infused the page. <S> I think the wisest thing in that article is the advice to forget about rules and just write. <S> Requiring your work to fit into that schematic could throttle it if it is not the right method for you. <S> When I think of some of the greats - whether it be Victor Hugo, Tolstoy or Thomas Mann; I think part of what makes their works last would have been edited out to fit that MRU structure. <S> Hugo waxes poetic in sections and those passages shimmer with beauty. <S> Magic Mountain might have been edited down to a novella or short story. <S> What would the MRU structure have done to Moby Dick? <S> Melville interposed technical chapters on whaling to educate his reader and let even the most landlocked readers understand what his characters faced. <S> Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it was based on a true story. <S> Write the story you have to tell. <S> Later, when you have reached the end, go back and see if you can tighten it up a bit without dissecting it. <A> Since you state at the start that you're trying to live into this theory as a exercise for yourself, I won't critique the theory itself (or even suggest that you just adopt it "in moderation"). <S> So, taking the Swain structure for granted, how do you fit in world-building? <S> The answer is simple. <S> You should never try to "fit in" worldbuilding, no matter what writing structure you're using. <S> Worldbuilding is important, but it is for you , the author. <S> It builds a stage on which you can present the action. <S> Any time you pause the storyline to shoehorn in all the cool ideas you have about the world, you're risking losing the reader. <S> Instead your worldbuilding should inform everything that happens in your book. <S> Every "scene" and "sequel" should take place in a place you know <S> well, mentally speaking. <S> Every character action springs out of <S> whatever backstory you know for your characters. <S> I'm no expert on this theory or structure, but it doesn't seem to me to lack for opportunities for description. <S> For instance, the sources I found indicate that the back-half of the MRU should be something sensory. <S> The dark jutting tower loomed over DeMarcus <S> [Motivation, but also description of a feature of the world] . <S> He nuzzled his face into his mother's side for comfort <S> [Reaction] . <S> If you have other things you feel compelled to include, ask yourself these questions: Why does the reader need to know things the character doesn't know? <S> Why should the reader notice things the character doesn't notice? <S> If this exercise has any value, it will be to force you out of your comfort zone in the direction of showing, not telling (and I say this as a writer who has no personal hard-and-fast rules against "telling" in fiction).

Use as much exposition and world building as required. No writing system is 100% perfect for all situations so you are obliged to make exceptions as needed for your story. The idea of Scene & Sequel is to minimize, if not completely eliminate, everything that does not directly serve the current scene.

How to search for titles of novels that are or begin with a word or phrase previously used as the title of many nonfictional works? Say I have a possible title for a novel I am writing, and it's a word or phrase that has been used in the title of quite a large number of nonfictional works, sometimes as the whole of the title. But I am not interested in those works, because I am only interested in novels. What I am interested in, first, is whether my possible title has ever been used as the whole of any other novel's title; and, second, whether any novel has been published which starts with my possible title and then contains one or more other words following it. For example, the word might be the term "Literature", in which case the first question would be Has a novel ever been published called "Literature"? and the second would be Has a novel ever been published under a title containing two or more words of which the first is "Literature"? It is no surprise that many nonfictional works have been published with titles that are "Literature" or begin with that word. Google's advanced search tool at Google Books , as far as I can tell, allows only searches for book titles that contain a specified phrase, regardless of whether they also contain other words and regardless too of whether they are fiction or nonfiction. The British Library's tool for conducting an advanced search of its catalogue is more useful insofar as it allows you to search for items that have a given phrase as the whole of their Title field, but like the Google Books engine it does not assist with selecting only novels, or only fictional works, and a further weakness is that it cannot pick out only books and it will also return plays and musical works. <Q> Although it only has speculative fiction, The Internet Speculative Fiction Database could help. <S> It's a start, and it's powerful enough to do exactly what you want (plus it can be downloaded and queried with SQL for even more power if you needed something more complicated). <S> On this page ), you should search: <S> Title | starts with | literature AND <S> Publication Type | is exactly | NOVEL <S> (If the title of something is just "literature", then it will be found by this search.) <S> However... <S> From your description, it sounds like you're trying to use a title that's going to be very frustrating to search for, unless people remember your name. <S> I very rarely remember the names of authors and I suspect that a lot of people are the same. <S> If you need a specific example of how frustrating this is, try searching for the book "Literature®" on Google. <S> It exists and you'll know it when you see it (because of the "®" that's part of the title), but you probably won't be able to find it without resorting to ISFDB. <S> (Since most search engines ignore special characters, it's basically the same as if the book was titled "Literature".) <S> Because of this problem, you should consider titling your book with something distinctive enough that people can find it when searching for only the title (and maybe a description like "book" or "novel"). <A> After posting this question, I found that WorldCat allows its database of fiction and films to be searched for items with titles that contain or are a defined string. <S> A search on "Literature" brings up the one-act play by Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler that was published in English translation as Literature: A Comedy , as well as some anthologies - but not many, so they can be gone through manually quite quickly. <S> A search on "Fiction" brings up an item by Martin Walser that seems to be a series of novellas, but not the 2018 novel by Ryan Lieske. <A> Easier said than done. <S> I tried Goodreads . <S> The good news is it allows you to search by genre. <S> Not just fiction but also type of fiction, if you want. <S> And by title. <S> But you can not set it to just choose the titles that start with the keyword. <S> And you can't alphabetize the results. <S> Then I tried my local library , and it works! <S> I was able to set the keyword search for titles only <S> and I could set a category. <S> I chose "adult fiction. <S> " <S> There are 60 results for "literature." <S> Note that it also looked within series names and sub-titles. <S> It then allowed me to alphabetize them by full title. <S> Drawback? <S> A fairly small database. <S> The search engine company is SirsiDynix . <S> Find a bigger library that uses it <S> and you're in business. <A> You can use this resource for book recommendations. <S> Your library may have subscription to this service, and you can access the database for free. <S> Just type in whatever details, and search. <S> You may also browse for books. <S> EbscoHost - <S> This is just an extended version of NoveList. <S> It basically allows you to find more than books. <S> Some stuff can be read online; others are retired.

Type in what you want in the search engine, search by database, and narrow your search. NoveList - This is a very good resource for finding books.

Writing short stories in an original world setting I'm writing short stories in a Fantasy world setting I have created — medieval times, magic, dragons, etc. People who are familiar with such a world may not find a problem reading a short story set in an unknown world. Since short stories are usually very condensed and precise, I'm torn about the amount of knowledge I should include about the world. Should I show more than usual? I do not intend to write a novella. So my question is: How much setting information should I include in a short story set in an original Fantasy world? <Q> Short answer: <S> You should write just as much as necessary, and nothing more. <S> Short stories are supposed to be like that - short. <S> Even if it's a fantasy setting, maybe a wildly elaborate one, you should not describe more than you need to bring the short story to an effective, satisfying end. <S> Any information you give should serve at least one of those purposes: <S> Allow the reader to understand what happens, or emphasize something about the theme of the short story. <S> Point one basically means that you can't pull important informations on the setting without having them introduced, first. <S> Let's suppose you're writing a short story about a warrior exploring an unknown dungeon. <S> He stumbles on a chest and tries to open it, expecting to find some treasures, but - surprise surprise - there's a magic trap inside and he bursts into flames. <S> While that would be quite a big shock for the audience, it wouldn't be satisfying if you have not hinted at the existance of magic in the world. <S> Point two is about something more subtle. <S> Let's say that the underlying theme of your short story is greed or proto-capitalism in your fantasy setting. <S> Then maybe it would be interesting to talk about the guild system in your world, the trade routes, the kingdom's taxes, the slave-runned gold mines ... <S> you name it. <S> Maybe those things don't come into play into the plot per se, but they add relevant flavour. <S> A character may just stop and think: The elf had a thick layer of sweat on his brow, like a slave after a long day mining gold for silk-gloved hands. <S> Ask yourself: what's the point of my story? <S> What is the theme? <S> Most of the times, hinting at something is enough - the audience is smart and will connect the dots. <S> You don't have to stop and tell how everything works, everytime. <S> You may feel the temptation to show the readers how cool your worldbuilding is: try to resiste the urge. <S> No one cares if you've got the most fantastic magic system in your story if it doesn't come to play, or it doesn't help making a point. <A> @Liquid's answer is fantastic, I would add just one thing. <S> Create a Beginning That Immerses the Reader In The Setting <S> Since this is a short story you want to set it up as quickly as possible. <S> A number of things will help pull your reader into your setting: <S> Strong story title <S> Early, specific setting details <S> If your title is created properly readers are going to immediately understand that it is a fantasy and has a specific type of setting. <S> Specific Details <S> Concentrate on your intro sentences and show something that will provide the reader with a definite understanding of the setting. <S> A large shadow raced over Zelda and her right hand went to the hilt of her sword as she shielded her eyes from the bright sun and looked up. <S> Fleekle the dragon had found her. <S> But how? <S> I'm sure you can do much better than that simple example, but notice that I mention the sword, the dragon, etc those small elements are enough to let the reader get an idea of the setting. <A> Include a map at the beginning. <S> This might mean some work or require some help. <S> Have a map at the beginning that shows all the fantastical elements in the imagery, such as the archetypal cottage to represent a town in a forest, a medieval castle to represent just that. <S> In the periphery, paste images of dragons or wizards or old compasses to embellish. <S> If you have two suns, show them at the top, for example. <S> A lot of land, culture, sense of scale, background, and general exposition can be conveyed in a single map image.

In other words, all the elements that come to play in your short-story arc should be somewhat understandable to the reader. Remember: you don't have to "explain" everything. What you want to avoid at all costs is useless exposition.

Is my work fiction or non-fiction? I am currently working on a story. I would like to publish this on a literary magazine website, and this website has only three categories - fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. My story is probably not poetry, even though I do pay attention to form and word choice and extreme personification. My story is not really fiction, because the narrator is me , and all the characters are based on real people , and the experiences are real experiences . I just change the names to protect my privacy. The narrator's name in the story is also the author's pen name. That leaves only non-fiction. But non-fiction doesn't seem to fit either. The exact course of events in the story has never really happened in my personal life, but each piece does come from my personal life. The other characters are based on real people, but I don't have a tape recorder with me all the time, so much of the dialogue is based on what I think/remember what the people said at one time. And the extreme personification and attention to form make the entire work sound like free verse poetry. In the story, I personify a concept. Also in the story, I intentionally break a sentence's flow for the sake of form. I don't know where mine fits. <Q> It's fiction. <S> It's probably closest to memoir, which is basically autobiography, a type of non-fiction. <S> But then you say: <S> The exact course of events in the story has never really happened in my personal life, but each piece does come from my personal life. <S> The other characters are based on real people... <S> If you're not certain (or if you'd really like to submit it as non-fiction), ask the publisher. <S> It's fiction based on real life. <S> Your goal is the story and your inspiration is reality. <S> But you aren't trying to document the historical record. <S> It may be thinly disguised fiction, but it's still fiction. <A> In fact, it's so ubiquitous that people tend to assume <S> this is what most writers are writing unless there's clear reason to believe otherwise. <S> There's no reason to treat this or present this as anything other than fiction (outside of whatever <S> personal fallout <S> there might be if the real life inspirations recognize themselves in your characters). <A> While it sounds like what you're writing is not Creative Nonfiction, this essay about it may help clarify your self-description: <S> https://www.creativenonfiction.org/online-reading/what-creative-nonfiction "Creative” doesn’t mean inventing what didn’t happen, reporting and describing what wasn’t there. <S> It doesn’t mean that the writer has a license to lie. <S> The cardinal rule is clear—and cannot be violated. <S> This is the pledge the writer makes to the reader—the maxim we live by, the anchor of creative nonfiction: “You can’t make this stuff up!”

This is "autobiographical fiction," which is a very common subgenre of fiction.

Are fictional inventions trademarked? I am wondering if I can include fictional inventions like the power suits in Iron Man. I believe that "power-suits" are used legally by a lot of media; however, what if the power-suit you're describing is very similar to the one in Iron Man? Let's say there are jets on both hands and feet and, to take things even further, what if the color scheme is the same, and what if the mask looks exactly the same (but the rest isn't)? What about lightsabers? To what degree does an object need to be similar in order to be vulnerable to a trademark lawsuit for a fictional object? <Q> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property <S> Ironman's armor and SW lightsabers are not "stock" items appearing across unrelated genre works. <S> Compare to medieval knight armor or barbarian swords which are "stock" items. <S> A generic time machine is not protected, but a time machine Delorean powered by a flux capacitor is specific to one franchise. <S> The fact that they are fictional does not make them less protected. <S> The IP is stronger when they are used consistently and repeatedly within their franchises. <S> Laser – actual thing that exists in rl. <S> Phaser™ – exists only in Star Trek franchise. <S> Android – actual thing that exists in rl. <S> Droid™ – exists only in Star Wars franchise. <S> Comicbook character with superhuman abilities – "stock" element that appears across many titles and franchises Super Hero™ – coined by DC in the 1930s, but not trademarked until the 1960s when the term was already in generic use. <S> The legal status is disputed but has not been challenged in a court of law <S> Trademark and Copyright are specific to manufacturing and publishing, respectively. " <S> Fictional inventions" which are intrinsic and specific to their franchises have numerous legal protections including industrial design and trade dress . <S> Comicbook character designs <S> are the product, far more than any one film or book which is protected by copyright, or the logo which is protected by trademark. <S> The more recognizable the design – especially when they have been licensed for other media (toys, halloween costumes, films) – the more their legal protections are recognized. <S> The simple fact that Disney has defended their IP with lawsuits, reinforces their case for IP. <S> Marvel even provides contact information for licensing on their website. <S> These are current franchises, and their exclusive and valuable corporate licensing contracts are common knowledge. <S> If the average 10yo knows Ironman is part of the Marvel Universe, I guarantee a judge will not have any problem deciding. <A> Read my answer to your question yesterday about copyright. <S> The courts will look at the totality of your work. <S> If they find the work is "substantially similar" then you infringe copyright. <S> the way it works and looks is the product of many hours of work and imagination. <S> You cannot steal it! <S> I am not a lawyer but <S> the way it was explained to me is this: If what you copy already exists in multiple works by more than one author, then it is probably okay to to copy it, because copyright and trademark have to be owned by ONE entity, they cannot be held jointly by multiple owners. <S> So if you find talking rabbits in many books, feel free to write talking rabbits. <S> Bugs Bunny is not the only talking rabbit. <S> But if what you copy is traceable to one and only one source, then you are likely in violation. <S> So if your power suit looks and works exactly like the fictional Iron Man's power suit, and you cannot find any other fictional power suit in the literature that THEY copied, then leave it alone. <A> Iron Man wasn't the first person to don Power Armor. <S> That would be Juan "Johnnie" Rico from the sci-fi novel Starship Trooper by Robert Heinlein. <S> Even then, the novel is said to have only "popularized" the concept, not be the outright creator of it. <S> Even wishing to make an Iron Man styled superhero, there are a lot of other popular power armor heroes out there, such as Steel and Blue Beetle (DC), Robot (Image comics), Iron Lad/Vision II of the Young Avengers (the gimmick with the initial team is that they are all legacy characters of heroes, but not the ones they initially appear as... for example Hulkling is not the Hulk, but rather the first Captain Marvel.). <S> Star Hawk is another Marvel Power Armor character but his armor is from a very different source than Iron Man's and the two have no major interactions. <S> You can use the concept, just don't make it a full on Iron Man. <A> The concept of power armour isn't in itself subject to a trademark or copyright, but Iron Man's definitely would be, just as a costume consisting of a bodysuit, boots, and a cape would be okay but red boots and cape with a blue bodysuit with a shield-shaped red and yellow logo on the chest, not okay.

Here's a common sense rule: if it has ever been mass-manufactured as a toy then it is licensed property and has IP protection. So if your suit is exactly the same, YES, you probably infringe; Iron Man's suit is a product of somebody else's imagination,

Writing a short story in the same universe as my novel In my post-apocalyptic novel, the MC Eris navigates the world of survivors and grapples with her newly discovered abilities. The leader of the group of survivors, and the book's antagonist, Ezrith, had a wife named Saskia who was, unbeknownst to everyone, killed by Eris. I want to write a short story that centers around Ezrith and Saskia's death and how Ezrith handled it when it happened, but I don't really know where to begin. Should I call my short story a prequel, or, since its a short story, can it not be called a prequel? Should I write my short story so that it could be read stand-alone, without previously reading my novel? And since the short story is written about the antagonist, whose backstory is tragic, how do I keep the reader from piling all their sympathy on her? <Q> I wouldn't get hung up on prequel or sequel labels to be honest. <S> This is more true when you have a story where events are happening before and after another story/novel. <S> However we don't have a label for "quel" for "written after the original stor". <S> :) <S> There isn't a magical threshold where a story is too short to be related. <S> You have stories that used a short story as the seed <S> and I know at least one author that had a poem for their "prequel". <S> In the video world, you have shorts (4 minute) prequels to full-length movies <S> (Brave verses The Legend of Mardu), so I think the length matters. <S> The last set of questions is a bit more complicated, but why don't you want sympathy for the character? <S> What is wrong with having someone with a tragic backstory that changes the meaning of the first book. <S> As long as it is internally consistent with their behavior, I think it is perfectly reasonable. <S> Not to mention, everyone has moments of shining as their moments of shame; it influences who they become but one doesn't define them without variation. <S> Even your monsters can like bunnies. <A> Writing your short story as a standalone is highly useful. <S> You want your story to be readable by as wide an audience as possible, so you don't want to depend on readers having already read your novel. <S> If not, they've invested less time and money in it than the would have in a novel. <S> So for a reader, the short story is a "safer buy". <S> (Particularly if it is published in some sort of anthology with other writers, or even free on the internet.) <S> As an example, both Fragile Things and Trigger Warning (two short stories collections be Neil Gaiman) contain a short story set in the American Gods world. <S> Both, in fact, are sequels. <S> Both are standalones - one does not need to have read American Gods to enjoy them. <S> One does not need any information at all, other than what is contained within each story. <A> That is a lot of questions. <S> I will answer the last one. <S> You have a human being who is grieving and as such deserves sympathy, particularly since the loss is sudden and violent. <S> Give them a three dimensional, fully fleshed character and let them feel her pain. <S> I don’t know if you have suffered grief, but it manifests in many different ways. <S> Some weep in a corner, others soldier on like nothing happened all the while shattered by the experience. <S> Choose how your character will grieve. <S> Remember, everyone is a hero of their own story. <S> Your antagonist is no different, seeing everything she does as justfied. <S> She will be in pain, might lash out and this could darken her soul. <S> When writing this, you must not be on Eris’ side - this is not her story. <S> Let your other character breathe and grow in this, but remember that she is your MC here. <S> Unless you plan on selling your book as a boxed set - write it <S> so it can stand alone. <S> This will probably be finished before your novel so having it rely too heavily on something unreleased will just leave the reader unsatisfied and, should they later encounter your novel, less likely to read it judging from previous disappointment. <S> After my novel got deleted, I started working on a prequel, which will be a stand alone novel that dovetails with the main work.

In fact, a short story can serve as a sort of "advertisement" - if the readers like it, they would continue to the novel. In general, the length of the piece doesn't really matter. Let the reader empathize with your character and they can even hate that kid who kills this woman - though they won’t because it is difficult to hate kids - even ones who are killers by nature.

How can I add more depth to my poem? I used to write poems. I was in 4th grade, so I just wrote for fun. They didn't have any figurative language or symbols. My only goal was to make them rhyme. Here is an example of one of mine: The topic was risky The judge wasn’t blank, but picky. My stomach was getting really funky, My mind was full of question, And when my belly was acting like a monkey, I was full of tension. Then it all struck me, Just like an earthquake, I wasn’t making a single mistake. The idea was as easy to find as in my pocket, The idea was obviously Sonny Crockett! Now that we have read Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe, I know there is a lot more to writing a poem. For it to be a good poem. So, I decided to write poems again, but it is really hard for me to think of a symbol, and put it into my writing without revealing too much, so I can let the reader infer, but revealing enough. My question is: How can I give my poems more depth and symbolism? <Q> The reason your 4th grade poems didn't have any depth is you weren't putting any in there. <S> As you said, they were just fun bits of doggerel that rhymed. <S> If you want deeper poetry, choose a deeper topic: <S> Heartbreak, spirituality, acceptance, isolation, depression, love, hope, beauty, nostalgia, friendship , and so forth. <S> Next marry it to some specific sensory imagery or experiences --the feel of the weather outside the last time you saw someone, or the smell of childhood. <S> Then decide what structure you want --something with strict rhythm and rhyme? <S> Or free verse? <S> The artistry comes in terms of <S> how well and how naturally you bring those very different things together (topic/theme, imagery, formal structure). <A> There is a character-building strategy that uses Theory of Mind where an important character is described only through the perception of another less-important character. <S> It forces you to imagine someone through the eyes of another, limited by the secondary character's vocabulary and experience. <S> Symbolism is one way to pass clues to the reader past the less-informed narrator, but it will also lead to a better narrative voice which can be disassociated from the subject. <S> A family holiday seen through the eyes of a child will be different than a grandparent and very different from a teenager. <S> Poetry isn't just wordplay as you have realized, poetry can be uniquely non-narrative in the way it talks about subjects. <S> You don't need to tell a "story" or even relate events in a naturalistic way, it can be loaded (or biased) heavily in one particular style or POV to the point where the "truth" is completely obscured, or at least less important than the impressions. <S> Theory of Mind is also a great way to explore an unreliable narrator , where the author still needs to convey an idea of what is true even when the narrator does not understand it. <A> In my own very brief experimentation with poetry, I always found it helpful to start with the image , the symbolism, as it were. <S> So I wouldn't be "giving my poem more symbolism" - <S> I'd start with the picture in my mind, and write the poem around that. <S> In that fashion, I could replace words with synonyms, shift words around, scrape everything and start from scratch with a different rhyming scheme, and the core idea of the poem would remain the same. <S> So, for example, in this poem (written in highschool), I started with the image of "war orphan himself going to war - phoenix, dying so his son can be born": Like a phoenix, I was born from the ashes. <S> When the fires of battle have died, <S> In the air rang my life's first cry. <S> I have never known my father - <S> The phoenix is orphaned from birth, <S> But I've been raised like all others, Learning both of sorrow and mirth. <S> I have been like all other teenagers, Finding true love's kisses' first joy. <S> I've got work, I am earning my wages, <S> And my wife has begotten a boy. <S> Lo! <S> Of battle again rings the cry. <S> In the fires of battle I die, But my son will be born from the ashes. <S> It's not a good poem, but because it is not good, it is easy to see in it how everything is built on the image at the core. <S> (In Shakespeare's work, everything fits together perfectly and seamlessly, so it's harder to pick it apart and say "this came first".) <S> It's not an approach that would always work. <S> For example, it might be that you are trying to tell a story in verse. <S> In such a case, the story, not a particular picture, is at the heart of what you're writing, and everything else has to embellish that . <S> But it is one approach, that you might find helpful, if only for practice. <A> What is depth? <S> Drag the bucket up; Sloshing water dripping darkly down, Back into the shadows of the well. <S> Slake your thirst; <S> Gulp the water down - Chilly and refreshing, drawn right up From the depths beneath - an endless well. <S> If you say Only just one thing, Like a stone, that can't be anything But a stone, your words will have no depth. <S> Tell a tale - What else does it mean? <S> If there is no answer, then it means Only what you said - it has no depth. <S> Metaphor, Archetypal shapes Lurking back behind the front-most shape <S> - Will that give a poem deeper depth? <S> What is depth? <S> Drag the bucket up. <S> Water which you did not draw before From the deep and shadowed selfsame well.

In my experience, you'll typically do better in poetry with an emotion-driven topic than an intellectual or conceptual one.

Is it plagiarism to use Google Translate? This may be a very very stupid question but I need to ask it. I have written my dissertation in my mother tongue first, then began to translate it as I will submit it in English. While doing so I used Google Translate from time to time. I didn't copy anything from anybody, only translated my own sentences. But I also read somewhere that since Google saves everything you write online, programs like turnitin detect them and take it as plagiarism. Is it? Or even if it is not plagiarism, would it cause me some problems? I really need to be sure about this, please do not answer if you are not 100% sure. Edit: I want to add that I did not simply copy and paste everything from there, I just benefited from it sometimes and of course always correcting the dumb grammatical mistakes. <Q> You have the original (the version in your mother tongue) which predates the google logs. <S> It is still possible that a plagiarism scanning tool would detect it in the way you described, but you will be able to explain it away very easy. <S> That type of tools also pick up any citations that you use as possible plagiarism, even if the use is completely legitimate. <S> A human always have to analyse the output to determine if it is legitimate or not. <S> Just keep the original version and this should be no problem. <A> Translating your own work using GoogleTranslate is not plagiarism, any more than hiring someone to translate your work would be considered plagiarism. <S> (In the latter case, you would insert a line stating "translated by...") <S> While Google does store what you write, it's not a dump of "everything ever written in any form by anyone" that plagiarism-detecting tools later go over. <S> Instead, there is "everything published online", which Google doesn't store , merely indexes so it can be found. <S> Software searching for plagiarism would be going over (a subset of) that. <S> And there is the stuff you've entered into Google's search line. <S> Some of it, Google stores. <S> And does analysis on. <S> But it's not really accessible, except in aggregated form - "N people this year searched for X". <S> As for what people search to translate, I'm not sure <S> Google stores that at all, <S> but if they do, it would be in the same sort of "bucket" as the searches - not the "bucket" plagiarism-detecting tools would search. <S> (Somebody more tech-savvy is more than welcome to improve on this explanation.) <S> As @rasan076 points out , there's always a human at the end of the line, reviewing what the software spits out, and figuring out whether there's really any plagiarism. <S> Since you hold the original work, it is very clear that there isn't. <S> Basically, it's your work. <S> You publish it online, you do whatever with it, it's still your work. <S> No plagiarism. <S> Only problem you might run into is, Google Translate is not a very good translator. <S> Your sentences might well lose their original meaning, or any semblance of meaning at all. <A> No, but you will likely end up with a lot of errors. <S> It's not plagiarism, because it's not like Google Translate uses an advanced AI to turn your writing into a masterpiece. <S> However, it might be considered to be plagiarism in the future when the AI improves and can literally improve your writing, and you use it to improve your writing. <A> Google Translate is a tool, and tools have terms of service. <S> If you use any tool be it <S> Google Translate , Word, or a music synthesizer what you need to know is under what terms you are using those tools. <S> When you use these kinds of tools, most commonly online or install software on your machine you agree to a an end user agreement or terms of service. <S> In those terms it will describe how you can use the out put of that tool. <S> As I am not going to give legal advice here, I will say you need to read Google Translate's terms and see if they permit you to use the output in the way that you want. <S> This applies to anyone in other questions talking about AI, and it's complexity. <S> No matter how simple or complex the UI is unless we have AI rights in some far off future, it will always come down to under what terms you are using the AI. <S> For instance many products let you use it for free if you are not using it to make money, but if you are you need to purchase a license or pay for it in some other way. <S> TLDR Always read the fine print before you use anything commercially. <A> I think plagiarism is not the real issue here. <S> It's ultimately about the second part of your question -- what it means for the quality of the end result. <S> I don't know about dissertations <S> but I was recently talking to someone who knows multiple languages and asked him about whether tools like Google Translate can ever really substitute for human translation. <S> Perhaps not surprisingly, his answer was no, in part because of the many nuances and complexity of languages. <S> If you're going to be submitting a dissertation, you want to have something that looks and reads as professionally as possible. <S> More details on the technical nature of this debate are in this article . <S> Depending on how often you're going to be referencing material in another language, I'd even think about learning it, or at least the basics. <S> There proliferation of ESL classes and French classes has prompted a lot of other organizations to provide classes where you can become fluent relatively quickly. <S> Good luck with your dissertation!

Using Google Translate is not plagiarism, but it's not automatically free and clear either. There is no way in which anyone would be able to present a convincing case that this is plagiarism.

Pairing poetry with original artwork: is this done? As a novice writer of poetry, I am eager to grow in my understanding of that mysterious line between complete abandon within freedom of expression, and writing which acknowledges standards on what actually makes a poem “good,” set by those who have gone before. One particular form of expression I have been enjoying is pairing my poetry with my own original artwork images, so that together the words and the image are one unified work of art. (I am not describing a “meme” or “inspirational saying” like what you see on Pinterest. Rather these are compositions which are the sum of their parts.) I am not asking if this is right or wrong, as there of course is no such thing in self expression, especially if the poetry is just for myself and not for publication. Rather, my question is, am I helping myself on the path toward becoming a Poet who writes well and is interested in becoming a published writer? Is this ever done by well-known, respected poets? Do any of you Poets here on Stack Exchange ever do this? <Q> To answer your questions. <S> Most of the famous poets in textbooks don't (or at least not to the level that they would be known for both). <S> If the work is just for yourself, then by all means continue along the path that pleases you most. <S> If your goal is to improve, then it is possible that by spreading your efforts in trying to improve both your writing and your drawing you are hindering your progress in both. <S> Focus on the form of expression that is most important for you. <S> At this stage, the other should be regarded more of a tool to keep your inspiration active. <S> This, of course, barring the case in which your figurative art is part of your poetry, e.g. Horse on a glass roof U U <S> U U <S> (*apologies, I forgot the author, and I am not too sure about the literal translation of the title) <A> Many poets pair their artwork with their prose, probably the most notable is Rupi Kaur in her bestselling poetry collection Milk and Honey . <S> Here , here , and here are some examples of her poetry and art combinations. <S> Many poets and artists, including myself, when handwriting will often add art alongside their poetry to emphasize something or just add some aestheticism. <S> Kaur isn't the first or only one to do this; a lot of young people on places like Tumblr do the same thing. <S> There are no rules to poetry and if what feels right for your writing is to pair it with your art, then go right ahead. <S> I don't see any reason why a publisher would turn you down for that. <A> I can't answer the question of if it's going to help you become an established poet, because I'm not that. <S> I am an artist tho, and I combine poems with illustrations as well! <S> You might want to look broader than just becoming an established poet, if your artwork is good enough you can also exhibition them alongside with the poems! <S> I'm planning on doing exactly that this year with my series, is this similar to what you mean? <S> https://thebluepangolin.com/gallery/the-humanity-series/

Some famous poets have paired their poems with their own artwork (e.g. William Blake) .

Can we "borrow" our answers to populate our own websites? Second Edit -- to try to expand the scope BEYOND W.SE and to cover any CreativeCommons work, not just here. Deleted part about the badges. -- Edit -- to clarify it's not quite a BLOG, more a portfolio of teaching resources I've developed. My website (on a Wordpress core, but mostly a portfolio of my instructional work) is more empty than I want, but I do tend to write in response to a "conversation." One example is my writing here on writing.se, but I alsowant to include my own comments on some blogs with active discussions in the comments, or my forum posts on spacebattles. I need to verify, but I'm pretty sure all of them are Creative Commons , at least for the discussion (if not the actual main blog-writer's post, such as Alison's Ask A Manager -- I am pretty sure her columns are copyrighted, but the discussions are CC.) Using W.SE as a purely hypothetical example of one of many creative-commons places where one can contribute... Can I do something like: On writing.stackexchange.com (it would be a link to the specific question) someone asked about ESL characters (quick summary of question) , and I responded... blockquote of my answer Summary of a few other answers Maybe me expanding more instructional resources beyond what I put on W.SE, maybe not.. Anyhow -- I want to be sure I'm correctly understanding both Creative Commons and the reuse/remix policies. <Q> You have the legal right to reuse elsewhere what you post on Stack Exchange. <S> It's your content. <S> When posting to SE, you give SE a nonexclusive license to use it, and doing so requires that it's your content to license in the first place; see the terms of use for the details, it's referred to as Subscriber Content . <S> However, others' contributions are only available to you under the terms of CC-BY-SA, unless the copyright holder(s) license it to you on other terms in addition to the blanket license given by posting it to SE in the first place. <S> So in order to use that content, you'd need to either comply with the terms of CC-BY-SA, or obtain a separate license from all contributors to the content you are using. <S> Copyright applies also to derivative works, but whether a summary constitutes a derivative work in the legal sense or not seems unclear at best. <S> I'm not sure I'd want to go there. <S> It would be easier to either (a) use only your own content, possibly copied from SE if that's easier for you; and/or (b) use other peoples' contributions verbatim, with appropriate attribution and clearly marked as used under CC-BY-SA. <S> That should be enough to keep you in compliance with CC-BY-SA. <S> A good answer is likely to be meaningful even if read without the context of the question, or at the very least should be easy to adapt such that it is even without incorporating the question itself into the answer. <S> Standard disclaimer, I am not a lawyer (and certainly not your lawyer), yadda yadda. <A> I have done this on my own website , more than once . <S> Before I did it, I checked the SE license , which states that work here can be freely used and modified, but must be attributed. <S> Personally, I did the following: <S> I only reused my own content, I rewrote it fairly substantially, and I linked back to the original post. <S> I don't think any of that is strictly necessary from a legal standpoint, but those seem like reasonable personal standards in terms of being respectful of other people's work. <A> Absolutely! <S> The Creative Commons page is here: <S> https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ <S> It says all the information is available to everyone, to build on and remix, and even charge money for. <S> You are required to attribute it and link to the same CC page. <S> The restriction is that you cannot prevent anyone else from doing the same , so if you later decide your answer should be excusive to your book or lecture, that would not be something you could enforce. <S> Other people can remix and even sell your answers, edited however they like (they cannot take credit for it, and they cannot use whatever extras you write on your blog). <S> Answers here are not always permanent. <S> Questions are closed, users are removed. <S> An inevitable site redesign might break links in the distant future. <S> There is a Stack Exchange page about where their archives are stored (it has been an issue, I guess). <S> I would grab all the info as you go, and not rely on being able to access the source page in the future. <A> You wrote what you wrote, so I see no reason why you couldn’t use your own writing. <S> However, when you start talking about summarizing others, I get nervous. <S> I would be very angry if I found something I had written on some random blog - you need permission and at the very least would need to credit it appropriately. <S> If your blog is empty, write for it. <S> You want readers and creating content worth reading is part of having a blog. <S> If I saw a blog that consisted of recycled replies from another site and hyperlinks, I would go elsewhere. <S> Of course, I am not the usual demographic for blogs - but try writing something original and interesting. <S> Have enough respect for your potential readers to put in the effort to write something fresh.

So nothing legal would prevent you from reposting your own contributions elsewhere, even under a different (non-exclusive) license.

Should I signal completion of a decision point in an interactive novel? In my visual novel (an interactive, narrative-based video-game), I have a detective character who decides whether he believes interviewees controlled by the player. The detective doesn't explain his reason but it's buried in the choices. The reader can't anticipate which choice-combination will convince him (choices might reveal a clue unwittingly, said clue becoming important later). The reader can make a suspect helpful or aggressive, but they won't know what makes the detective sympathetic or suspicious. The player's choices therefore impact the story, but only indirectly. It feels like I need to emphasize that SOMEthing has been determined by the interview, but the detective is sly and does not always reveal his thoughts to the suspects/interviewees. I have the option to signal the reader non-diegetically that the detective has made a determination. In other words, I can signal the mystery's progress outside of the on-going dialog and other in-story elements (for example, Telltale's "Mr Toad will remember this"). The downside is that this means the story is sort of letting out a WHOOP WHOOP but not explaining it. It's telling, not showing . I can integrate it diegetically (in-story), as a "power" of the detective (it is an occult world) that he invokes at the end of every interview, so it could be integrated thematically, but it's still a gimmick that draws attention to itself without having a clear pay-off. The detective has determined something, but the reader isn't sure what. The signals are not necessary to "win." in fact without the signal the reader probably wouldn't realize the story has passed judgement. It is purely to draw attention to itself. The flaws of the interview may or may not be explained, depending on later branches to the story. Is a non-diegetic signal from the story engine goofy and distracting (breaking the 4th wall)? Or does it re-enforce the idea that choices matter , even if you have to trust me that the choices matter? EDIT: It's probably no surprise that my Interactive Fiction community says yes, the signal is a good idea but should be vague and subtle. The comments and answer on WritingSE says no, it should just emerge through the story. <Q> For: Many visual novels are in fact linear or have a few clearly signposted choices. <S> Markers that indicate replayability encourage replayability and discovery of new content. <S> Some interactive stories invite the player to examine the interplay between choices and consequences, the different consequences forming an implicit moral message of the story (something we don't see in real life, where time flows in one direction). <S> Perhaps you need the player to realize that yes, the predicament the protagonist is currently in is all due to that particular bad decision made earlier. <S> Signals make it easier for the player to both revert to the necessary point and notice the connection. <S> Against: <S> It's easier to map the decision tree, after which the world may seem less "alive". <S> If your game has easy rollbacks, an immediate, easily interpreted failure signal would encourage the player to instantly retry, thus lessening <S> the range of content seen by the individual player and the community. <S> Any metagame element that encourages replays reinforces the notion that all branches are equally good and the player "wins" by seeing all content and plotting the decision tree. <S> If your game has an actual win state that the player needs to reach, this metagame reward detracts from the effort and joy of winning and the player's empathy for the protagonist. <S> A compromise solution to reward the player for exploring different paths and encouraging replayability is to signal when the player has found a plot branch he or <S> she hasn't yet seen. <S> You can do it right at the branching point or after the scene concludes. <S> The game Cinders [free demo] by MoaCube does this. <A> In works that aren't strictly visual novels, where players/readers might not expect their choices to matter, then visual indicators work well to remind them that yes, the choice they just made will affect something. <S> But in visual novels, the concept of "every choice matters" is pretty much a given, so it would be distracting. <S> But if you do want to provide some kind of feedback about whether you've convinced the detective or not, you could have him stand up at the very end of the interview, get to the door, then turn back and say something like: <S> You know, between you and me... <S> I don't believe a word you just told me. <A> If the detective is entirely impassive, and reveals nothing, your interviews are going to be pretty boring for the player to wade through. <S> In game, no single character would ever see a tell more than once, so it's plausible they wouldn't see the patterns.

Signals make it easier for the player to explore all content and all branches in the game, should they wish to do so. I'd suggest giving him some info-bearing "tells" that a savvy player can pick up on (change in expression, drumming fingers, etc.). Since you appear to be writing an occult detective mystery, I'd say that not telling the player what kind of effect their choice had (or whether it had an effect at all) would work well.

Is It Legal to Use Military Insignias of Defunct Nations? I'm writing a novel, and the plotline has military terminology and insignias. The basic plot is that there are two continents in my world: one capitalist and allegorically like the US and NATO, and the other communist and allegorically like the former USSR. Is it legal for me to use the old military insignias of the USSR for my story for the communist continent's military? Or is it best to steer clear of that? <Q> It is automatically public domain. <S> (There are some complexities to this that we could get into <S> but they're not relevant here.) <S> But it doesn't necessarily follow that every other country in the world has the same laws. <S> In the case of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union no longer exists, so it's not clear who would sue you for infringement! <S> In any case, current Russian law specifically excludes the text of laws and government symbols from copyright protection. <S> So you could freely copy contemporary Russian military insignia. <S> Even if Russia considered itself to have inherited documents and symbols from the Soviet Union, they would presumably fall under the same exemption. <S> As Cyn says, if you are creating a fictional country, you probably don't want to copy too much from a real country, as that could quickly become distracting and out of place. <S> If I saw a movie based on Lord of the Rings and the hobbits had American flags flying over their village, my first thought would be that there was supposed to be some connection between the fictional hobbit nation and the United States, that they were eventually going to reveal that this place was founded by inter-dimensional travelers from the US or something. <S> And if no such connection was ever introduced, I'd think the producers were either really messed up or were trying to make some kind of point. <A> Legal and wise are not the same thing. <S> There is no trademark on government symbols. <S> But if you use the actual symbols from the USSR, you are writing yourself into a corner. <S> Readers who recognize them will expect that your country is in fact the USSR, even if it has a different name. <S> You are better off making a few changes. <S> It will be obvious to most readers that your novel is about two superpowers similar to superpowers of the recent past. <S> And that's okay. <S> You have more freedom though if you break away from the absolutes. <S> Use a different animal where one country uses animals. <S> Or use a plant or natural formation instead of an animal. <S> Change up the colors. <S> Change the number of stripes, or make stripes into concentric circles. <A> Almost always it is legally fine. <S> There is one major exception: Nazi symbology is banned in quite a few countries. <S> And there are isolated examples of other symbols banned in individual countries, but those aren't commonly used or well known symbols (generally result of local strife, so symbols of local terrorist groups, etc.).

Under US copyright law, anything created by the US government is not protected by copyright. Legally I believe you're in the clear.

Is using an 'empty' metaphor considered bad style? I just had this sentence off my head: A crown of fire spread through the country consuming everything on its way. What I mean by empty metaphor is a metaphor that doesn't really have any meaning or even purpose. The same sentence could be replaced with the following: A circle of fire spread through the country consuming everything on its way. Also, I don't even think crown would make sense even if the "fire" was spread by an evil king. What do you think? <Q> It isn't exactly empty; a spreading circle of fire might look like a growing crown; with high fire on the perimeter and no fire in the middle. <S> (But ending with "on its way" throws me, it should be "consuming everything in its way"). <S> That said, aside from your example, if your metaphor is obscure and has no obvious application to what is being described, then it breaks the flow of reading because the reader struggles to reconcile this. <S> That would be bad style. <A> This isn't bad style <S> "A crown of fire" is a an evocative statement full of imagery and connotations. <S> Instantly, I can imagine the burning ring of flame, progressing outward and reaching up to the sky. <S> The sentence may not make literal sense but certainly is a good description. <S> In contrast "a circle of fire" seems somewhat lame. <S> It describes the physical shape of the fire (potentially 'ring' would be better) but it does little to describe the appearance of the flame. <S> Whether this is good or not depends on if it fits into the style and structure of the rest of your work. <S> A single empty metaphor in an otherwise literal piece will feel out of place. <S> But if your work is full of this type of description then it will be fine. <A> It's an "Analogy" Similes and metaphors are types of analogy . <S> It's still a metaphor because of the sentence structure (it's not a simile). <S> When the comparison is really extreme it's called an analogy . <S> The brain has to "reach out" to synaptic connections <S> find the cross-reference how these things are alike, and eventually offers up shapes and colors , like your fire-crown. <S> You have an instinct that is telling you these words are associated. <S> It's a good instinct. <S> Keep listening! <S> It is not "empty", it is loaded with vivid imagery, but also other (surreptitious?) <S> cross-referenced associations like concentration of power , danger , and eminent domain . <S> My brain was delighted. <S> Thank you! <S> Compare to this example from the analogy link: <S> Night Clouds (By Amy Lowell) <S> The white mares of the moon rush along the sky Beating their golden hoofs upon the glass Heavens. <S> Which plays with associative imagery and motion, but makes your head hurt if you try to picture it too literally (horses, upside-down, tapping on a class ceiling with their feet). <A> You are right to be wary. <S> An empty metaphor is a missed opportunity, and missing your opportunities is bad style . <S> Please note that this doesn't mean this is a "bad" metaphor. <S> It means that it's a metaphor that isn't (currently) working. <S> In the right context, it could be a great metaphor. <S> In fact, it might be leading you in a productive direction, one you just need to expand upon. <S> I torch the forests with a sword of flame, and top the trees with a crown of fire . <S> Now this metaphor is doing work. <S> It's telling you things about the narrator (the evil king you suggested). <S> Here's a different example: <S> The regal forests were robed in green, but crowned with fire . <S> In this case, it's the forest itself that's personified as royal. <S> These usages are easy to understand, because there's some context letting you know what connotations of crown are important. <S> In your original example, the reader has to work hard to guess what you mean. <S> A crown is a circle, it has jagged points, it goes on the top or the head, it signifies a monarch. <S> So which of those is applicable here? <S> If you're just going with the simple, geometric answer, you're right <S> , you're not gaining anything over the more direct "circle. <S> " <S> In fact, you've made your job harder because crowns don't expand, and a circle of fire does.

More generally there isn't really such a thing as "bad style" just different style.

How do I introduce this character? I am writing a story these days and I want to introduce a character who is similar to a king. This character is introduced with heavy announcements by his minions who scream out words of admiration and basically annoy everyone in their path. How do I introduce the character in such a way that the reader is annoyed by the minions presence while also making the protagonist also personally feel annoyed by the nuisance. <Q> Annoying the reader is almost never a good strategy . <S> So your focus should be on annoying the protagonist. <S> That, in turn, is a matter of developing your protagonist's personality and goals in such a way that the minions intrude on it. <S> Maybe he just doesn't like self-important blowhards. <S> Or maybe he's got places he needs to be, and the procession is holding him up. <S> Or he suspects the king of being an imposter. <A> Use the narrator as a tool to avoid annoying the reader. <S> The narrator controls the flow of information. <S> Have the minions do their thing. <S> Once. <S> Then... <S> The crowd clapped politely as the ruler walked by. <S> The minions started up again with the "isn't he amazing" bit and the clapping began to fade. <S> The ruler walked on. <S> Couldn't they at least go far enough so that no one's heard it already? <S> This time the ruler managed about 15 feet before the drone of his accomplishments began again. <S> He felt like running but forced himself to stay a few feet behind his announcers. <S> "His great intelligence and thoughtfulness..." <S> God save me , he thought. <S> Maybe I can duck out behind that food stand . <S> You want your readers to realize how annoying those characters are. <S> Big difference. <A> Your character is used to this fanfare and has witnessed it from early childhood. <S> He is probably either deaf to it now, it being as noticeable as the air he breathes, or so tired of it that he wishes it were not part of his life. <S> Royalty is a ritual, more for the onlookers than the participants. <S> Said royal knows that he cannot walk down the street without this procession and his devoted servants whose sole purpose is to maintain the honour and dignity of the throne - who can sometimes suffocate the occupant of that throne. <S> Perhaps he is a younger king and is known to sneak out of the palace and pull a Henry V kind of stunt, though once Henry ceased to be Prince Hal, the fun was curtailed. <S> Cyn has good advice. <S> Even the titles can drone on seemingly forever ‘Defender of the Faith, Lord of the Eastern Marches, Duke of York....’ and that is without the fawning praise of your minions. <S> The courtiers will do what courtiers do and it is difficult for the king whose court it is to escape the trap of royal protocol. <S> Every minute scheduled, no time to oneself to think unless they schedule that too. <S> He opened his eyes, a new morning and a glorious day. <S> There was Lord Harcourt holding his robe - would rather look out the window and see the world beyond, but such would not happen today. <S> Stepping into his robe, he saw Lord Robert come forward, still nervous at his recent elevation to the king’s personal staff. <S> “Majesty, you have the Council Lords at two, an emissary from Spain regarding your bride, the Bishop will see you for breakfast - sorry, <S> m’lord, but he insisted.” <S> “Next time, Robert, tell his Grace that I require solitude during my meals - a precautionary measure.” <S> “Yes, Majesty. <S> There is a market and it was requested that you be seen by your people.” <S> Not that again. <S> Another chant of the litany of his titles - why were there twenty? <S> If only his grandfather had been less ambitious there would only be fifteen. <S> “A procession?” <S> “Yes, sire. <S> It is considered advisable.” <S> “By whom?”

You don't want to actually annoy your readers.

Coloured comments in a word processor [Word/Libre/OpenOffice] - is it possible? Is there a way to have comments in different colours , in Microsoft Word, Open Office Writer, or Libre Office? (I am currently using Open Office, and I'm happy with it, but I am open to making the switch if need be.) If that would require installing some additional widget, but won't cause the file (including the comments) to be unreadable without it, I'm open to that too. I am using comments extensively while writing. Every time I re-read what I wrote to get back into the stream, if I find something that needs editing, I leave a comment for later. If I write something, and need something to foreshadow it earlier, I leave a comment. If I need to reference something in a conversation, but I don't know yet where this reference leads (so it's a thread I leave lose to pick up later), I leave a comment. It would be very helpful to me if I could colour-code those comments in some way, so "bad wording, needs rephrasing" comments would be visually different from "this plot thread needs work" comments. <Q> In Microsoft Word you can style the text inside the comment in the same way that you can edit your main text (font, colour, spacing, style, effects such as strikethrough, highlighting, ordered and unordered lists). <S> So you can, for example, make some comments bold red and others underlined blue and some just standard black. <S> When you open the Reviewing pane, you can then see a list of comments, styled in the same way. <S> To simplify things and to help you categorise and style your comments consistently, you could also create and apply custom styles. <S> For example, you could create a style named "Rephrase" that uses blue, and "Plot issue" that uses red. <A> Added due to comments: I use LibreOffice Writer. <S> My comments below reference it, not OpenOffice Writer. <S> I believe these were derived from the same original code, but apparently they have diverged since then, at least in regard to handling formatting of comments. <S> Switching to LibreOffice Writer has apparently resolved Galastel's problem. <S> In <S> LibreOffice Writer: <S> I notice that if you highlight the text of the comment in the box, then the regular Format/Character menu will let you pick different colors for the TEXT, so that would let you choose different colors for different categories of comment. <S> The documentation says the comment box background color changes for different users. <S> I notice in the Tools/Options menu <S> there are several fields related to Comments, by default the BG color changes by the user commenting. <S> I tried to change mine to White, thinking that would be best if I was just changing the text color, it didn't work. <S> I tried a few things for five minutes but gave up. <S> Perhaps there is a way to assign "white" as the background color for YOUR user id, I did not look up how to do that. <S> I should think changing the text color would be enough for a handful of categories. <S> Red, Blue, Black, etc. <S> Only problem is you can't search for comments of a certain text color, other than visually, then it seems like a pain to scroll through 300 pages looking for a red comment. <A> A useful option may also be GoogleDocs, as it's free. <S> I can't give specific examples (Gmail/Gdocs blocked at my current day-job), but I remember some students used it for peer-critique very well. <S> It defaults to each person having a different color for their edits/comments. <S> Since it sounds like you're self-commenting, the multi-color thing may not work, but I wanted to offer a free option. <S> MS Word allows LOTS of fun with styles -- that's what I'm focused on right now. <S> You can even filter your comments and search for specific things, if you want to explore macros. <S> In my current "April Draft" template, I have some styles called "draft body", "draft talking to myself" "draft navigating" and "draft H#" (using 1-3, for table of contents.) <S> When I show it to my boss, I'll switch to department template, and anything still in "thinking to myself" <S> formatting will indicate a question I still need to address before I declare the draft finalized.

So one way would be to change your user id for each comment; that is possible but seems tedious.

Write for an audience or find an audience for your writing? I've never written for anything other than personal enjoyment or for a predefined context before. I have ideas and partial drafts for several books and want to finish at least one this year. My concern is about how I need to change my writing when I intend for it to be read by a larger audience, particular how do I ensure it has a clear target audience? When writing a story is it better to choose a target audience and keep it in mind while writing, or to write whatever and then figure out the target audience? <Q> Both. <S> If I get an idea, I'll have a good sense of the target audience. <S> The age group, the genre, etc. <S> But when I'm writing, it might morph. <S> And that's okay. <S> I'll keep writing and let it be what it needs to be, then recategorize it. <A> Let me expand on @Cyn's answer. <S> Tolkien wrote for himself. <S> He was sure there would never be an audience for the Silamrillion , and was surprised by the wide acclaim of The Lord of the Rings . <S> So were the critics, by the way. <S> What happened is, Tolkien wanted to read a certain thing. <S> Because it wasn't to be found, he went and wrote it. <S> (Note that 'fantasy' didn't even exist as a genre back then.) <S> Because it was this new thing, critics didn't know what to make of it, and the public only found out that yes, they did in fact want this, after the thing was written. <S> So, from that perspective, write what you want, the audience will be found later. <S> At the same time, you need to stay aware of the general age group you're writing for. <S> Your tone, your vocabulary, your content would all be influenced by whether you're writing for a child or an adult. <A> The real question is what do you want to accomplish by writing. <S> If it is to make money or gain fame or impress the neighborhood, then you would likely write to engage one or more target audiences. <S> If you write, as I do, to shape your thinking, then the target audience is yourself. <S> The joy of current technology is that you can serve any of these goals with a minimum amount of effort. <S> You can blog and use that medium to expose shorter works. <S> You can write a novel or a how-to book and publish it through Amazon or similar mechanisms. <S> There are minimal barriers to how you might publish your work. <S> The gatekeepers still exist and they still matter <S> but you can go around them with ease. <S> You do not have to make much of an argument that your work will attract an audience sufficient to provide a return on the investment needed to convey your work to that audience. <S> Just do it. <S> Thus, the key question becomes, what you do want to get out of the process. <S> And only you can answer that one.

If you write for the joy of creation through the exercise of the writing craft, then who cares who else reads it, other than to validate that you have mastered the craft.

Always sounding idiomatic as a non-native English speaker A lot of people use Google's n-gram to see if something is idiomatic, but for a lot of non-native English speakers even that doesn't really help, so what would you suggest non-native speakers to do so that everything they write sounds 100% idiomatic? <Q> Beta readers. <S> Find beta readers who are native speakers of English and give them red pens and completed manuscripts (which you've already run though Google and done the best edit you can on them) or the online equivalent. <S> The only other answer is "spend years getting more fluent in English." <S> While there's truth to that, it's not reasonable. <S> And if you didn't grow up speaking English every day, there are subtle things you will miss. <S> So getting outside help is the way to go. <S> Frankly, even native speakers need good proofreaders. <S> Even native speakers who are professional editors. <S> You shouldn't be the only editor of your own work. <A> "Her English is too good, he said. <S> Which clearly indicates that she is foreign." <S> -- professor higgins (my fair lady) Being overly proper is often a non-native speaker indicator. <S> But this is not what you are asking... <S> Google n-gram is NOT a source of idiomatic expressions. <S> n-gram is just a collection of frequencies of words appearing in a sequence (of n) over a large corpus of text. <S> It really doesn't tell you if an expression is legit or not. <A> Idioms are part of language, though how a work could be 100% idiomatic seems bizarre. <S> Oscar Wilde once said we are separated by a common language - that is true. <S> The differences between English spoken in different locations can be a source of confusion or amusement. <S> Do you intend to write the piece with a strong regional flavour? <S> Idioms are often a difficult thing to use correctly for non native speakers. <S> Idioms are learned locally and vary from place to place. <S> In some parts of the US, if you buy a Coke, you bought a soft drink, in others a pop, or a soda, or a soda pop. <S> Same bottle of cola but referred to in multiple ways dependant on location. <S> Idioms are interesting in that their use will flag a speaker as being from a particular location even if their accent is similar to the local one. <S> The problem with idioms is that non native speakers often misuse them. <S> They can be confused by the multiple meanings of a word and be unaware that in the region they are visiting, that word means something else. <S> If, for example, someone who learned English in a formal setting and knows that pop is a sound, or a brief light hit might be puzzled when they hear someone wanting a pop. <S> Find a proof reader who was born and raised in the area you are writing about and let them teach you the proper use of the local idioms.

When you've completed the next several rounds of editing, hire an excellent proofreader who is a native speaker.

How can I write an annoying character without annoying the reader? My story has a group of five refugees traveling across the kingdom. One of them is preachy and pretty much useless (unused to physical labor, trying to convert the heathens in the group). She's driving three of the others (including the MC) completely crazy. How can I show that she's turning the other characters into giant flaming fireballs without annoying the reader as well? I'm assuming I should keep her dialogue to a minimum... <Q> You need to get inside her head. <S> Everyone makes sense to themselves. <S> She has reasons for doing things and, you might disagree, but they're valid to her. <S> She has goals and dreams and desires. <S> She has conflicting emotions and strengths and weaknesses. <S> If you show her like you described her here, she is a shadow of a character. <S> A stereotype. <S> I find reading about a stereotypical character <S> far more annoying than any character can be in the first place. <S> The most annoying character in the world, however, can be a joy to read in the hands of an author who understands her. <S> Of course, even the great characters can be too much if you overuse them. <S> And too much dialogue is wearing for a reader. <S> So balance things. <S> And if you don't want this character to be a main character, that's fine. <S> Don't use her very often. <S> But treat her like a human being (or alien or whatever) with the same worth as everyone else. <S> Your other characters can be annoyed as all get out by her, but your reader should enjoy reading about all your characters. <A> Call her Marie. <S> One way is to let a few other characters (Mike and John) express their frustration with Marie when she is not present; and actually laugh with each other by exaggerating and joking about her. <S> This is what we do IRL, rather than express any direct hostility toward the irritating person and create a real rift, we find some catharsis and release by laughing about how over the top and irritating she really is. <S> This creates an inside joke between two characters, one the reader is in on; so when Marie makes some otherwise mildly preachy observation, you can put a spotlight on it: Mike looks at John with a pained look and wide eyes, John bursts out laughing, and Marie is interrupted. <S> "What's funny?" <S> "Nothing," John said, "I was just remembering this stupid thing. <S> Please, go on, Mike is dying to hear the rest of your story!" <S> "Oh, how sweet!" <S> Marie said, turning to John, "I'm so glad you are interested!" <S> You can even use this as a step toward two strangers (Mike and John) bonding as friends. <S> The only risk here, if you choose to realize it, is that Marie finds out they are making fun of her. <S> You don't have to let that happen, but if you choose to, you can handle that as a character growth opportunity for any of the three. <S> For example, say John is actually a nice guy. <S> Marie finds out they have been making fun of her, and retreats to cry. <S> In his attempt to apologize, he learns her religion is adopted, and out of fear; it comforts her and makes her feel safe in an inherently unsafe world. <S> Mike's attitude may be "She needs to get over it, the world is a dangerous place." <S> But John can develop sympathy for Marie, and become protective of her. <S> His solution to avoid the religious talk is to talk to her about other things. <S> Perhaps they even fall in love. <S> Now they both have character arcs. <A> One technique you could use is to demonstrate the annoying-ness of the character by making the other characters reactions show their annoyance. <S> For example, frequently asking questions that "should be obvious" but that the reader might not know otherwise. <S> Or critiquing other characters in a way that sheds light on that character and helps develop them. <S> Complaining about something that the reader would not otherwise know was a problem. <S> Comedic relief to break the tension. <S> Other characters reactions can be varied, as long as they show annoyance. <S> Simply ignoring this character might work sometimes, complaining to each other about her obnoxiousness, telling her to be quiet -- as long as it makes sense for their character. <S> This is the part that is really going to make the reader understand that your character is annoying, so focus the details here rather than on the annoying person herself. <A> You'll see a good example to learn from when protagonist Ralph meets Vanellope in Wreck-It <S> Ralph . <S> She annoys him partly because of a short-lived immature aping of his words, but mainly because she obstructs his ability to recover a medal he rightly earned, and which he thinks he needs to get his colleagues' respect. <S> In his efforts to get rid of her he tells a number of lies and makes a fool of himself. <S> It doesn't cost him the audience's sympathy, but nor does all our moral condemnation fall on her. <S> And we quickly learn she takes the medal because of an serially even greater personal need it can fulfill. <S> You might say a problem shared is a problem halved. <S> I don't want you coming away from this thinking this only works with children annoying adults. <S> I could have discussed an example reversing those age roles in Coco with the Miguel/Héctor dynamic. <S> I'll leave you to find child, adult-adult, Wookie-droid etc. <S> examples of his own. <A> I am not a writer <S> so please don't expect a great answer, but think of characters Kristen Wiig played on Saturday Night Live (SNL). <S> Some of the most annoying characters she played were adored by audience. <S> “Target Lady”, “Secret Word”, “Thanksgiving Soup kitchen”, “1920's party” etc. <S> to name some. <S> I think observing the traits of those characters can help.

What the other characters find annoying need not be annoying to the reader, the reader might even appreciate it.

Is it okay for the final chapter to be a lot longer than all the other chapters? In one of my novels (it's a middle grade fantasy novel) the chapters average around 2,000 words. But the final climactic chapter is currently almost 7,000 words. I am considering splitting it into two because it feels unbalanced to have it as it is. But I'm concerned that splitting it might break the momentum. On the other hand, not splitting it might make it seem to drag on relentlessly. For further info, there is a natural break point, where the battle moves from one place (and one gear) to another - in fact thinking about it, it actually changes gear more than once, so could potentially be split twice. Thanks for your input. <Q> I think chapter length matters, some of my readers have specifically complained about my chapters being uneven. <S> Short, that's okay, a positive surprise. <S> Too long is not good. <S> So I now measure them, and find a natural break point, or even a cliff-hanger. <S> Apparently that's okay <S> , all they really care about is the metronome of chapters ticking by. <S> I'd break it up, if you can, into sizes comparable to (or shorter than) your other chapters. <S> The rest of your book has trained your reader's expectations. <A> It's not a problem if only the final chapter does this. <S> As Amadeus mentions, chapter length is a kind of unspoken pact with the readers. <S> If your chapters are somewhat even around 2k words, most readers will expect another 2k words. <S> Maybe coming into the final chapter they'll wonder, "hey, how is this going to sort itself out in such little space?" just to discover that the final chapter is thrice as long. <S> But if the quality of your writing is good, and if the ending is compelling, there is no major issue in that. <S> Readers that followed you up to that point won't drop your book at last. <S> It's a once-in-a-while exception to the unspoken rule, and it will be forgiven since it's the last chapter. <S> While this is true, it may be worth splitting it, since you already found a good turning point, or a good cliffhanger. <S> If your story is compelling, it will make no difference. <S> The plus side here is that you're giving your audience a choice. <S> Maybe having a clear-cut break point will be useful for those readers who don't like reading all in a bulk. <S> Maybe some of them don't have enough time to face a 7k chapter. <S> You'd be providing a nice place to stop, a place where it makes sense for the plot, also, and sparing them the hassle of having to find a break themselves in some arbitrary point. <A> The chapters in my middle-grade novel are all over the map (408-1712 words). <S> So far it hasn't been a problem, as I end them at natural stopping points, but this may be something I have to fix when the book is done and in a full edit. <S> I would not have a chapter as long as 7000 words though. <S> This is middle-grade fiction and the chapter is just too long for that genre. <S> Middle grade is the age (8-12) where the readers scream "noooooooo!!!!" <S> every time a book or TV series pauses. <S> My daughter at that age used to refer to every single TV episode end as a "cliffhanger." <S> You might think it's better to give the kids what they want: more story. <S> But I think it's better to make them stop. <S> Because if you make them scream in protest, you've got them hooked. <S> Even if that's for the very end of the book, it's still an engaged and motivated reader. <S> Much younger kids hate breaks when they're having fun. <S> But this age group enjoys a bit of anticipation, just like they enjoy being scared (some of them anyway). <S> If you're on a roller coaster, you don't want it all to be g-force. <S> So whether that chapter pause before the final push is enforced to "tomorrow sweetie" by a tired parent, or is nothing more than a two-second chance to scream, you've got a reader who can't wait to get back to it.

Although I don't personally do this, I think some readers use chapters as a kind of progress marker, and don't like it when they are too long. Dedicate readers will go from the second-last chapter to the final one without even noticing the split.

Should the average length of a chapter depend on the length of the novel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_count#In_fiction This Wikipedia page tells you under which classification a fictional work falls under depending on its length, so we have 3 I am most interested in, namely: novellette, novella and novel. We could argue that all of them are novels, so would you agree that the length of a chapter should depend on the length of the novel? Moreover, how short should the shortest chapter be? I am asking, because sometimes, you write a scene, and you have a hard time adding any relevant information to it and you want to end it as soon as possible. One of my chapters is barely 400 words long, so I was kinda concerned about the length. <Q> Shorter chapters for shorter books, but you don't have to. <S> I mostly read novels on longer side, epic fantasy and similar. <S> In these chapter length varies widely from author to author. <S> The most common would be to have chapter lengths between 3000 and 4000 words. <S> Some though use far longer chapters, with section breaks rather than chapters. <S> And some use far shorter, chapters don't even have to cover the entire page. <S> I have read novellas without chapters at all and novellas where the longest chapter was ~1000 words. <S> In general I would say the shorter the overall work the shorter the average chapter length. <S> If you want to use long chapter in shorter works you will need to do more with each chapter. <S> 5000 word chapters in a novella may only give you 3 or 4 chapters to tell your story. <S> However this isn't a bad thing and many good books have this structure. <S> In writing this answer I realised a lot of what I was saying was a better fit for the more general sizing of a chapter question <S> so a lot of <S> what I said there also applies here. <S> In summary, use chapters for pacing and don't worry about actual word count. <A> The length of the chapter should be dependent on what you need to say. <S> If you're writing a battle scene from the perspective of a character, then make it longer. <S> However, you do not need every chapter to exceed a word count. <S> Write and do not worry about word count. <A> Chapters should reflect the sequence or flow you are looking for. <S> Keep the reader interested enough to want to actually read the next chapter. <S> Some books almost want you to "skip" a chapter. <A> A chapter in a novel is a consumable / semi-self contained chunk of a story, it may contain one or more scenes. <S> If the average length of your chapters in your story is 5000 words, there is nothing to say that you can't have a mega chapter with 15,000 words, or a tiny transitional chapter with just 1,500 words.

There are no hard and fast rules about how long a chapter needs to be, or should be.

How to write exciting updates? For my Pathfinder campaign I write an update each session which I share with my players. The goal for these updates is: Provide a brief recap of the previous session Get people excited for the next session Be entertaining Provide some additional lore Here is an example from earlier in the campaign: Approaching Sandpoint A villain thwarted, a new companion found and a scroll retrieved. A great deal had happend to the Friday Knights since they left Sandpoint. What would they be facing upon their return? Sandpoint would certainly be different than when last they saw it. What to do first? They had debts to collect and an old wizard to speak to. Then where to? All their immediate plans were at an end. Only time would tell what lay ahead... Recently I've had somewhat of a writers block on these. My recounting of events has become drier and less interesting. I'm looking for advice on how to write these to achieve the goals listed above. Particularly how to write the cliffhanger type endings to get people excited for the next session. How can I write a recap to make people excited for the next instalment? <Q> give your narrative voice some rules <S> Who is telling this story? <S> What is the POV? <S> Is this a children's storybook narrator filled with condescending wonder? <S> Is this a salacious fantasy book blurb splashed over an epic fantasy poster? <S> Is this fan-fiction from a 14yo? <S> Is this an in-story bard who only speaks in rhyming couplets? <S> Maybe it's the letters home from Jimmy Scrambles the NPC junior member of the campaign who still has a lot to learn. <S> Maybe it is the thwarted villain, or the old wizard, or some throwaway character retelling the story from their POV. <S> They could always threaten revenge, or console themselves that those roving briggands will meet their fate when they get to the TUNE IN THIS WEEK TO FIND OUT! <A> While you are recording the info during the campaign take note of specific things your players reacted to and use them to pull your players back into the story. <S> Remind them of decisions they made and rewards they recieved. <S> "Finally, the team has rescued their new employer from the clutches of Zizi Madshadow. <S> There were a lot of close calls, and one completely obliterated druid. <S> But, with the help of a very smart badger and Elsbeth's amazing rock throwing abilities the mission was a success. <S> " <S> Then use foreshadowing to push them into the next episode or campaign. <S> Hint at a few things you have in store for them. <S> Use questions to lead them in. <S> "Now, back at the library, they report for their first official day on the job, wondering what exactly a library needed a team of armed adventurers for. <S> Retrieving memoirs and manuscripts from old scholars and churches couldn't be that dangerous, could it?" <S> "Will Sheina, finally find a dragon to ride?" <S> "Is there enough cheese in the library to satisfy our rangers craving?" <S> Be specific and play on the personalities of your party. <A> I used to run a Star Trek RP game and when doing cliffhanger-esque sessions all the time. <S> Normally I'd start off the next game with a short recap about who was where and when and why.... <S> Since this was Star Trek, they had a distinct format for this model and would always begin with "Previeously on Star Trek: [Series Title]" and end with " <S> And now the continuation/conclusion." <S> The format of the ending statement differentiated to the view if the episode was expected to also end on a cliffhanger (continuation) or wrap up the story started in the previous episode(s) (conclusion).

You could also drop little temptations that appeal to your players motivations.

Translating non-English lyrics to English I am wondering what are some guidelines when translating the lyrics of a song to another language, because lyrics depend a lot on musicality (rhymes, syllables), it's very hard to maintain the same meaning across languages, so should you try to keep the meaning as much as possible or not and for what reasons? <Q> A song has lyrics and music. <S> Translating the lyrics, you'd want to keep the music. <S> It means that as you're translating, you'd have to try to sing each line to the original music. <S> The beats would have to fall in the same places. <S> There are other auditory elements you might want to preserve, or at least try to preserve. <S> Alliteration sounds like music in our ears, for example, so whenever possible, it should be kept. <S> Preferably with the same letter, though that might not be possible. <S> Pay attention also to homorganic consonants. <S> On the other hand, lyrics tend to be less rich in layers of meaning, so that should make your job easier. <S> You should, of course, preserve the general meaning and the overall image created by the song, but consider, for example, <S> Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls : if, for reasons of rhyme or meter, a translation to another language changed "blue-eyed floozy" to "brown-eyed floozy", the overall meaning of the song wouldn't change one bit, would it? <S> That is to say, you have a bit more leeway with the particular words, than if you were translating prose. <A> It would be wonderful if you know the language you are translating from, if this is the case, try to find words that have similar meaning and the same number of syllables, if you do end up changing the meaning a little and a line in the song doesn't make sense, change the rest of that line to make sense even if it doesn't match the original meaning. <S> Who will know? <S> If you have to use idioms, that would work too. <S> And also I noticed someone mentioned the irrelevance of this to the subject of writing, and it gave me an idea for where you can get more help. <S> There are several Stack Exchange sites related to language, I suggest you go here to find idioms or similar phrases to help piece together your translated songs <S> Here are some links: Language Learning English Language & Usage <S> English Language Learners <S> Spanish Русский язык (Russian language, in Russian) <S> French German Japanese Portuguese Ukrainian <S> Chinese Italian <S> Russian Latin Korean Esperanto Constructed Languages <S> and if none of these are quite right for you try going here and proposing your own Stack Exchange: Area 51 <A> There are two main reasons to translate lyrics: 1) <S> In this case, translate for meaning . <S> If you can give some hint of the original rhyme scheme or meter, do so. <S> 2) <S> You want to create a version of the song in the target language. <S> You'll essentially need to write all new lyrics that fit the rhyme scheme and meter. <S> If you can capture some of the spirit of the original lyrics, all the better. <S> It's impossible to do literal translations from one language to another that also preserve rhyme and meter, so you're forced to privilege one or the other. <S> Consider: <S> I Dreamed a Dream <S> (English version) <S> I dreamed a dream in days gone by <S> When hope was high and life worth living <S> I dreamed that love would never die <S> I dreamed that God would be forgiving (literal translation of original lyrics) <S> I dreamed of another life <S> But life has killed my dreams As we stifle the last cries From an animal that we finish AND <S> Habanero (English version from Carmen Jones) <S> Love's a baby that grows up <S> wild <S> And he don't do what you want him to <S> Love ain't <S> nobody's angel-child <S> And he won't pay any mind to you <S> (literal translation of original lyrics) <S> love is a rebellious bird that no one can tame <S> And it is in vain that it is called <S> If he agrees to refuse AND <S> Seasons in the Sun (English version) <S> Goodbye <S> my friend <S> it's hard to die <S> When all the birds are singing in the sky <S> Now that spring is in the air (literal translation) <S> Farewell <S> Emile, I'm going to die <S> It's hard to die in the spring, you know <S> But I go to the flowers, peace in the soul

You want the audience in the target language to understand the original lyrics (for instance, for liner notes, or a song lyrics website).

How to tag distinct options/entities without giving any an implicit priority or suggested order? An example of the problem in an aggravated form surrounds the controversy of France changing ‘mother’ and ‘father’ to ‘parent 1’ and ‘parent 2’ in official paperwork - where the controversy suggests the new standard implies one parent is 'secondary' and the designation may induce completely unnecessary family conflicts. In technical writing this may happen also; we have two or more completely independent identical units/objects/devices, which need to communicate. Any of them may initiate the communication, and this will assign them specific roles, but before the conditions occur, they are perfectly equivalent and so suggesting any order, priority, sequence etc would be misguiding - but we still need to distinguish them; assign them some designations when describing the situation. Marking them "Unit A, B, C"; "1, 2, 3"; "X, Y, Z", "Alpha, Beta, Gamma" this all is a specific sequence. I might try using symbols, 'unit @, unit *, unit %' but I believe this by itself would be rather confusing, never mind not yielding itself for verbal communication. Can you suggest a convenient set/system of identifiers to use e.g. in technical writing or legal documents, that doesn't imply any order or priority of the options, but still allows to reference them uniquely? <Q> I think you may be overthinking the issue. <S> In technical writing when you name three entities with elements of a specific subset, the ordering of the specific subset doesn't come into play unless it is specifically stated. <S> There are plenty of examples where the common "A,B,C", or "X,Y,Z" are used without underlying assumptions of "who come firsts" or "who is more important". <S> Luckily enough, technical writing is somewhat shielded from those kind of controversies. <S> Answering your question, though, you could try: Assign full names to your entities. <S> This is often done in telecommunications examples or in cryptography ( Alice and Bob, exchanging messages... ). <S> If you don't like inventing name, you could use the Nato Phonetic alphabet . <S> To be sure, following an alphabetic convention won't free you of an underlying order. <S> Another drawback of this soluton is that full names are not concise; if you have a lot of entities to name, you'll see your text fill up with Alices and Bobs. <S> Use a color coding. <S> Your entities can become Red, Green and Blue. <S> This is somewhat assimilable to the alphabet, since you can easily shorten those to RGB. <S> Yet, if you pick your names from colours, nobody will be able to claim that you are making assumptions about who's more important. <A> Assign them a cycling index "number" upon discovery. <S> Use an arbitrarily large sequence, orders of magnitude larger than needed. <S> To further the concept of an oversized indexing system, letters are sometimes combined with numbers. <S> Perhaps hexidecimal with an advancing cycle larger than 1 Parent <S> L7KQ6 <S> verses Parent Z3M19 <S> sounds suitably dystopian. <A> To address the question behind the one you asked -- the implicit "superiority" in ordering -- write examples that don't start with the first unit . <S> For example, I might describe a database with nodes A, B, and C, and then talk through an example where B acts as the initiator in processing a query. <S> Who says it has to be A? <S> The names are arbitrary, after all, so don't start all your examples with the first name in your ordered set. <S> (For that matter, why not have nodes K, L, and M?) <S> If you have users Alice and Bob and Carol and Dan, try having Dan or Carol be the first ones to act in a scenario. <S> There is value in having sequential names in some kinds of diagrams and examples, like that database cluster (where there might be way more than three nodes). <S> Don't make your documentation less usable by talking about nodes 12, 37, 42, and 139 instead of 1-4 or A-D. <S> But you don't always need meaningful names and you don't always need to match "first in the sequence" with "first in the example or sequence of actions". <A> I don't think most readers would assume that the order in which you list things implies a priority. <S> If you're going to give a list, it has to be in SOME order. <S> If you said, "I work with three guys: Al, George, and Fred", I think few would assume that this means that Al is better or more important than George and Fred. <S> That said, if you're concerned that readers may make such an assumption, just add a sentence saying the order is not significant. <S> I see this every now and then, a writer will say, "The members of the group, in no particular order, are ..."

Full names and arbitrary names are good solutions to the question you asked.

Should I write a companion book/blog? As a spinoff to this question: Incorporating research and background: How much is too much? I'm writing a middle-grade fantasy novel with a historical fiction component based in Ancient Egypt. I'm doing enormous amounts of research on both the history and the religious aspects (it's based on the Exodus). A lot of people seem to think my research would be of interest to people and have suggested I consider a companion book and/or a blog. Obviously I don't want to take away writing time for my novel. I have to finish it first. But the longer I wait with research notes, the more I forget the details. Writing everything down takes a while. Has anyone done this or seen this done (especially not by hugely popular books/authors...I mean, let's not count A Song of Ice and Fire )? Is it just another time sink to slow down finishing my novel? Or is it worthwhile? <Q> I think, done correctly, a blog could be a tremendous support to your book . <S> Among other things, it could be a selling point for getting the book actually published (publishers like authors to have "platforms" these days). <S> However, as you pointed out, a blog can be a big time-suck, and it needs to be updated at least once a week, or no one will ever read it. <S> My recommendation would be to go ahead and get a blog account --I <S> strongly recommend wordpress (you can get a free basic account on wordpress.com if you don't have your own hosting). <S> You don't necessarily have to publish any of the entries --you <S> can use it as a useful note-organizing system, with the advantage of categories, tags and dated entries. <S> But if you do get an entry that just needs a little tweak to be publishable, keep a note of it. <S> Then, during the long horrible waiting periods while you're waiting for the book to find an agent or publisher or to come out, you can go back through and convert your notes to publishable entries. <S> You could spend some concentrated time polishing several up at once, and schedule them in advance. <S> I've had blogs for a long time, and I've used them both as places to workshop new material that might be a book someday, and as an alternate place to publish material that was intended as a book but never sold. <S> I haven't ever seen any huge popularity from any of my blogging, but it does raise your online profile, and it looks good in a query letter . <S> I've even occasionally had people reach out to me because of it, and I once even had someone refer to a bit of my blogged writing in a major venue (the "generic parody" referenced in the opening paragraph). <S> As far as a companion book , that's really just a way to get double benefit out of your research after your novel is done. <S> As I mentioned, you'll probably have a lot of downtime between finishing the book and seeing it in print. <A> A companion book - it's way too early to think of that. <S> There's no sense in writing a companion book when you haven't written the main book yet. <S> A companion to what would it be? <S> Once you've published your story, if it sells well, there might be a market for a companion book with additional information. <S> Of course, by then you might be tired of Exodus, and eager to do something new instead. <S> A companion blog - you could do that now. <S> It might even help generate interest in your upcoming book. <S> I see one serious problem though: you have X hours a day for writing. <S> If you spend Y hours writing your blog, you've only got (X - Y) left to write your novel. <S> And the novel is what you want to write, right? <S> Otherwise, your goal is the novel . <S> Don't let yourself get so distracted from it that you don't actually finish the novel. <A> It's a personal decision. <S> For me, I wouldn't. <S> I think your goal is to be a novel writer, not a non-fiction writer, not a research writer. <S> Notes as you have them (or much less) is fine; at most I'd take less notes, but keep track of the final source that made your decision for you. <S> So you decided in Chapter 17, character Joseph, on X, because you read Y, around page 140-150. <S> That way if you are in an edit round on Chapter 17 and want to revisit something, you can review your notes on Chapter 17: Aha, it is X. <S> Now you have a clue about where to start on the backtrack, you don't waste time on the early non-productive part of the search. <S> You read what made your decision, and can decide if that was weak justification, strong justification, or if you want to go further. <S> If you make a change, record THAT in your notes on Chapter 17, because who knows if you will be back here in Chapter 17 a month from now! <S> Of course you can start this "ResearchResults" file now, and fill it in as you go. <S> If you need to backtrack through old notes and rebuild them, do that as needed don't make a new project about it that interferes with your writing. <S> My advice is to be a novel writer, not a non-fiction writer, not a blogger. <S> Entertain people through your fiction, and don't sap all the time you have to write fiction with reading, blogging (neither of which you get paid for), and the drudgery of writing a bibliography for a non-fiction reference book. <S> You could have written more novels, and IMO that would be a lot more fun, and build your readership a lot more, and make you more money in the bargain.

If writing the blog helps you write your novel in some way - helps you arrange your thoughts, get over a writing block, gives you some sort of encouragement - then go ahead and do it.

Do British publishers change US English spelling to British English spelling? I have read the Red Rising trilogy as paperbacks published by Del Rey, a US publisher. (I bought these books while in the US.) Now being based in Europe, I want to starting buying the follow-up trilogy, and noticed there are two versions of each book, one by Del Rey ( Iron Gold and Dark Age ) and one by Hodder & Stoughton (a British publisher: Iron Gold and Dark Age ). Are these different? Is maybe one US English spelling and one British English spelling? (Note that the author is an American.) If not, why are two publishers to begin with? Some motivation for my question (beyond general interest) is that I would not like switching from US English to British English during one story line; also, I like to read authors' works as originally as possible, usually. However, the British books are a bit cheaper in Germany. So, would I be able to buy the British publisher's version and still continue reading US English? <Q> I've seen a few books been published exactly as they were, and also many books that have been changed according to the place they're being published in, not only in language but also the context that may not be appropriate or understandable by the local readers. <A> Since they are both the English language I highly doubt that a different translation is what you are looking at here. <S> The most they would do would be to alter some slang, which would change the way the book was supposed to be read. <S> This would also be more trouble than it's worth. <S> Translations cost time and money. <S> I think what you are most likely seeing is a case of publication rights being sold to two separate publishers to reach a wider audience. <S> I found a wealth of information that explains such things HERE . <S> It would only start to change if you moved to a different language entirely -like German- which these books have been translated into as well. <S> From what I can tell they are highly popular. <S> Hope this helps! <A> It can go either way. <S> I remember being very young the first time I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and thinking it was hilarious that Arthur had to go into the basement of the planning council carrying a torch. <S> I thought there were no flashlights available! <S> On the other hand, the first Harry Potter book had all instances of 'Philosopher's Stone' replaced with 'Sorcerer's Stone' and I won't even attempt to explain why. <S> It is up to the individual publisher, and occasionally the contract with the author. <S> I'd say your chances are 50/50.

You would probably end up with two identical books that have the names of different publishers on them. So I think it totally depends on the writer and/or the publisher whether they think the changes are needed or not.

What is the best way to simulate grief? I am new to the art of writing and have been wondering if there is a way to introduce the grief of loss(character dies) in my story, inturn while making the reader feel the grief. Is there a good method to go about doing this (Making the reader feel the grief a character feels)? <Q> It is more engendering grief in the reader than simulating it, but one must be careful lest the beloved character you killed off be the only one the reader cares about. <S> It is one thing for the reader to put the book down for a few minutes and think about the loss, quite another for them to put it down and never pick it up again. <S> Will their quest fail without this character or will this loss galvanize them further. <S> When Katherine Kurtz killed the gentle healer Rhys, it shocked me. <S> She had another character psychically linked with him at the time of his death so that he was not alone. <S> This other character cared deeply for Rhys and his anguish seemed real. <S> It made the death matter. <S> Killing off a good and interesting character must be important or the reader feels they wasted time investing more in the character than the author did. <A> The best way I know of is to make the reader feel the grief too. <S> By this I mean you build the character so well, make them so loved, that when they die it hurts. <S> Then the reader doesn't just imagine what the other characters are feeling, they feel it too. <A> I think the best way would be that you tame your readers.they should feel your character, like a close friend, like the little prince and the fox. <S> the readers are getting closer to your character as the story goes on, and then when she/he is sad, you feel sad, and if the character dies you feel it in your heart... <S> if you do feel it, readers will feel it too.

What you need to inspire in the reader is genuine sorrow that said character died balanced with caring how the others will cope without him/her.

What are the key elements of a humor story? I've always loved humor stories, and relish the idea of making one. But the thing I cannot grasp is the key elements of one. Are the key elements the same as a normal story (Problem, Solution, etc.)? Or are they different? <Q> Same elements, but funnier. <S> A humor story will have the exact sames elements as a normal story. <S> You will still have a plot, characters, and scenes. <S> You will still need to develop your plot and have character arcs. <S> The largest difference is that the rule of funny applies, which gives you more leeway for events than a serious book. <S> The other big consideration when writing comedy is pacing. <S> Most comedies have faster pacing than their serious counterparts because jokes that miss are boring and can kill the pacing of a story. <S> You either need to be sure the joke hits or have the joke fulfilling multiple tasks, such as setting the scene, advancing the plot, or developing a character. <A> +1 to Hink, the elements are the same. <S> They still follow the three-act structure. <S> But often the "problem" facing the protagonists is ludicrous (a funny friendly alien needs help, the end of the world is coming, they discover a time-traveling hot tub), and their reaction to the problem is likewise ludicrous and irrational, or self-indulgent. <S> The essence of a joke is to lead the audience to rationally expect one outcome, and spring either the opposite or something else on them that still makes sense. " <S> Spring" is an important word here, a joke has a surprise ending, often in the final word, and they won't laugh if they anticipated the twist. <S> The surprise is why it is called a "punch line", it has some kind of impact like a punch. <S> Which is why jokes wear out, people learn the punch line as one possible outcome, and stop laughing if the punch line is something they already expected. <S> The punch line has to be unexpected to elicit a laugh. <S> This is actually somewhat difficult to pull off; and also difficult to analyze logically and decide whether a joke works. <S> That takes years of experience in the comedy business. <S> It is also why many intended comedies fall flat. <S> For the same reason, comedy (minus stand-up) is often written in collaboration, because the author can be "too close" to their own material, they already know the punch line. <S> So others that can be surprised by the punch line provide a valuable critique. <S> The key element of a humor story is whether the jokes are funny. <S> A story is necessary, but you get much more leeway in the plot and realism of the characters and settings and reactions, most people will forgive a lot if they are busy laughing at the jokes. <A> In my opinion, the strongest comedy is based on perspective . <S> The best comedians and the best humorous writers see through to the underlying comedy in situations that other people experience as serious or even tragic. <S> For that reason, the strongest comic storylines are ones that would work, structurally, as dramas , but that are seen through the eyes of a humorist. <A> Late answer but thought it needed saying; The descriptive style of whatever happens will massively influence whether it's funny or not. <S> This could be just my sense of humour, but IMHO the funniest books are the ones where either a) <S> the jokes are inferred rather than described (less is usually more) and/or b) <S> the descriptions are <S> very unorthodox - random similes/metaphors are good for this. <S> Take for example my favourite quote of P.G.Wodehouse; She fitted into my biggest armchair, and made it look like it had been built around her by someone who knew they were wearing armchairs tight about the hips that season. <S> Granted, it would have been much more efficient and obvious to simply write " <S> She was very fat" or "She was as fat as a ... ", but the long-drawn description used here is simply far better. <S> Note also that the real effort goes into describing insignificant but relatable elements - that is, things that people can relate to without becoming emotionally attached to the outcome (it becomes difficult to humourise the killing of a 'goody' in a story, to cite an extreme example, whereas uncle mike getting tangled in the hoover cord is much funnier. <S> Unless he dies, of course...). <S> It's that point that I disagree with @Hink's answer, because you're actually focussing on different elements, because the desired effect on the reader is different.

But that said, a comedy story is the same as other stories, but usually using characters with noticeably unusual personality traits, as a device by which the author(s) can create the unexpected outcomes necessary to get the audience to laugh.

How to turn an antagonist into a protagonist? In a piece I am writing, I want to turn an antagonist into a protagonist. I know that numerous ways to accomplish this are somewhere out there, but none of the help with a smooth transformation. Is there a way I can turn an antagonist into a protagonist in a smooth fashion? <Q> I don't think there is a smooth way; an antagonist has to reverse course, there has to be a moment of truth in which they betray their followers, or partners in evil, and transition to good. <S> You can show doubts appearing along the way, and building to the point the antagonist hates doing what they are doing, but there will have to be a moment of truth when the antagonist flips and first offers their aid in a helpful or altruistic act; or first refuses to pursue their own interest at the expense of causing others pain; or first betrays their fellow evildoers, and that is going to be a sharp transition <S> no matter what. <S> And it should be; that is a moment of significant change, and such sharp transitions make for good dramatic moments. <S> The Bourne Identity (and whole Bourne franchise) is built on exactly this transition; a government assassin sent to kill a bad guy, that cannot bring himself to do it while the bad guy is playing with his young children. <S> That is told in flashback, but nevertheless it was a sharp transition, Bourne is wounded, he has amnesia, and he turns against his handlers that are then trying very hard to kill him (as a traitor). <A> Like the points on a circle, "smoothness" is simply a matter of the number of points and their spacing along the arc. <S> If you need a smoother transition, use smaller indicators more often over a longer period of time. <A> current protag is a lovebird? <S> Well, off the top of my head I want to say write another book from their POV. <S> But there are several other options. <S> Again, however you see fit, remove the original protagonist from the story. <S> This immediately makes people think death but as you stated you want smoothness <S> , I don't see death in any way smooth. <S> you could use captivity, being busy, travel, or he/ <S> she might have found new love again (knowing their tendencies it was probably with the antagonist again). <S> Hope this is helpful :)

My biggest idea is, in whatever method you see fit, make the current protagonist fall in love with the antagonist, now they do everything together seeming like there are two equal protagonists.

Writing as a second job A lot of people here aren't professional writers, but write in their own free time or for their own pleasure.It's not uncommon, though, wanting (or dreaming) to make "something more" out of it, whether that something more is getting published or getting some extra cash in one's wallet. This considered, are there some opportunities where one could profit from his/her writing skills? I'm asking specifically about gigs , ergo side-jobs. Since most of wannabe-writers have, of course, a day-job to pay the bills. I'm not looking for a comprehensive list; I'm just curious of hearing out your ideas and compare them with my own. I'm ignoring the difference between technical, academic and creative writing here for sake of the question; let's assume any kind of compensated job in a writing area is good enough for an answer. <Q> ... <S> are there some opportunities where one could profit from his/her writing skills? <S> Yes indeed, there are many opportunities - but it comes down to which writing skills you have, and how well you can sell what you have to offer. <S> As a professional I use a wide range of skills depending on the kind of job I'm doing: expertise in grammar and orthography are valuable when copy-editing; good vocabulary and an understanding of different demographies helps tailor the content/style to suit the audience (whether for a plain-talking public speech or a sophisticated academic article); creative flair is useful for writing fun pieces; analytical skills are important for policy writing; and turning a meandering interview with a person your company rescued from homelessness into a short, sharp personal profile or human interest article takes a whole packet of skills. <S> I trained as an English teacher but for 20 years I mostly worked in social welfare. <S> My expertise in the field led to a role as a policy officer for a peak body, where my writing skills were invaluable in crafting policy submissions, writing reports etc. <S> That led to a 6-year position writing organisational policies and strategic reports for a large non-profit, as well as writing/editing their annual reports. <S> And last year I went freelance, picking up work writing internal policies as a way to pay the bills while I try my hand at writing fiction. <S> You do need good writing skills if you expect someone to pay you to write for them. <S> But consider this: while big companies have their own writers on staff (internal policies, annual reports, public submissions, advertising & promotions, newsletters/e-bulletins & other communications, etc), most small-to-medium businesses have to outsource whatever of this they can afford to produce. <S> It's not uncommon for a business to have identified a need but then forgotten about it until your exploratory contact reminds them - and there you are ready to do it for them! <S> Of course finding this work isn't quite so simple, but once you've done a few small jobs - perhaps for a "bargain" price - it gets a bit easier. <S> Your country's (or state's) writers' association, authors' society or similar organisation will have more resources on the different ways <S> writers ply their trade for income while pursuing their more creative personal writing projects. <A> Small publishers are more hesitant to publish your writing, and the bigger ones are too preoccupied (from my experience). <S> If a book you write is something that strikes close to the publisher's heart or is a book they lavish in great amounts, your book will be more likely to be published faster (and will probably give you more profit), as they will be thinking about it. <A> As with any art form, the creative, personally fulfilling writing is what everyone wants to do --only the best <S> make money at it, and there's a glut of aspiring hopefuls. <S> The writing that consistently makes money is functional writing that fulfills some kind of ongoing need . <S> Here are some examples of that kind of writing: Niche reference materials : <S> If there's an under-served niche, and you're willing to put in the time and effort and research, you can reliably make money from a good reference work. <S> Family oriented direct-to-streaming screenplays : <S> There's more of a need for mass-market content for streaming video services than there are people willing to write them (and able to make them fresh and interesting). <S> Content for professional websites : <S> Sure, most people don't make money on the web, but there are websites out there in constant need of fresh content in areas that not everyone wants to write about. <S> There are other opportunities, but you get the idea. <S> Writing as a business is writing as a product . <S> If you bring your artistry to it, you can do even better, but if you're writing primarily as an artist, then your chances of making a living at it diminish sharply.

You can profit from your writing, but it will be harder to.

Terminology in sociology & statistics What is the word commonly used in statistics when the thing that you want to measure cannot be (or was not) measured directly, so you assume that another thing that can be (or was) measured gives an estimate of the frequency of the thing that you want to measure? For a (silly) example: You are interested in knowing how many Roman Catholics were in the survey but that question was not asked. Number of children in family was asked, so you use that figure as a (silly, I know) basis for inferring RC status, say when x>4. I am pretty sure there is a term of art for this, something like token, substitute, stand-in, but can’t seem to recall it. <Q> This is really @Amadeus's answer (so I'll delete this if s/ <S> he posts under his/her own account), but I didn't want it to be lost in a comment: <S> 2nd Definition at Link below, reads "A figure that can be used to represent the value of something in a calculation. <S> ‘the use of a US wealth measure as a proxy for the true worldwide measure’" en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/proxy – Amadeus Mar 3 at 22:54 <A> Operationalization. <S> "operationalization is a process of defining the measurement of a phenomenon that is not directly measurable, though its existence is inferred by other phenomena. <S> Operationalization thus defines a fuzzy concept so as to make it clearly distinguishable, measurable, and understandable by empirical observation." <S> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operationalization <S> "How" you measure a thing is how your study is operationalized. <S> E.g. how "liking ice-cream" turns into a categorizable dataset. <S> Some of these other terms, like direct and indirect measurement don't really apply in the social sciences, because we're not dealing with physical objects. <S> https://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/unobtrus.php <A> It is simply called an indirect measure .

I'd call it a "proxy", often computed or logically inferred.

How large should photos on my blog be? I sometimes post photos on my blog, like when I'm blogging about food . I've been shrinking the huge pictures my phone takes down to a size that fits more reasonably in a browser window -- my browser window, so far -- because I don't want my posts to require a huge window. Recently I've noticed that the platform I use (Dreamwidth) now has some degree of responsiveness; if I make a Chrome window smaller it scales the photos too, and my posts even look fine on a phone. This was not always the case, and is still not the case in Firefox for some reason. (I haven't tested additional browsers.) That some sites and/or browsers do scaling suggests I could use higher-resolution pictures, but some browsers don't scale so I don't want things to be too huge. In addition, bandwidth might still be a concern; not everybody has fiber or a beefy data plan, after all. And on the proverbial third hand, there are now high-DPI displays on which the photos I'm using might be tiny (I don't have direct knowledge). Putting all this together, what are current good practices for photo sizes on blog posts? Should I keep doing what I'm doing, which is to scale down the width to under 1000px (generally ~800px)? How do I trade off large high-res displays on the one hand and smaller displays with browsers that don't auto-scale on the other? Note that I'm not talking about special photos where I might especially want high-res (like that gorgeous sunset photo taken on vacation or the like). In that case I'd make a higher-res version available behind a click, so it's opt-in. Nor am I asking about print publications where higher-res is important for production values. I'm asking about "ordinary" photos included in blog posts. <Q> compression is more important than pixel size Somewhat more important than pixel size is compression. <S> TinyPNG , <S> pngquant , ImageOptim , and other online services can drastically reduce the file size of a large image by selectively removing the possible colors, typically reducing it to ~25% of the original download. <S> Depending on the image, this compression can look almost "lossless", much cleaner than the chunky squares of JPG. <S> These tools will allow your online images to be much higher in resolution while having a lower memory footprint and faster download time. <S> What size, specifically Screens become larger and more dense. <S> If you want to future-proof your photos, or display them on a 4K television, or if you want users to zoom into detail, the resolution must be higher. <S> Use the compression tools I linked above to reduce their file size while keeping the higher resolution. <S> As with Cyn's answer, Wordpress, Facebook, and other blogging software will resize your photos in the feed, allowing users to click to see the full resolution. <S> Your blogging software, or its theme may be controlling this for you. <S> There is no way to say 1 particular size is the best. <S> so it's worth checking. <S> All internet traffic is increasingly skewing to mobile devices <S> Although engagement (the time spent on the website) is still slightly higher on desktop, most people will find your website on their mobile device . <S> See this breakdown of mobile screen size usage by country . <S> 2 sizes are most popular: 750*1334, 1080 <S> *1920 (screens are oriented for portrait). <S> At a distant 3rd place are "budget" screens at 720x1280 and the "retina"-like high-density screens that double that (1440*2560, 1440*2960). <S> The high-density screens aren't for images, but to make text appear sharper. <A> This fits across my entire column ( <S> depending on the monitor/window size/browser of course). <S> That's a center column of content with menu columns on either side. <S> It's a bit bigger than many other sites use, but it works for me. <S> I may change it if I change my Wordpress theme. <S> What's best for the size of the picture depends on the theme or website layout. <S> As you've pointed out, another important issue is platform. <S> Wordpress automatically scales graphics. <S> I just checked my blog from my phone and the graphics are the appropriate size (though some get blurry when enlarged... <S> even if they're still smaller than the crisp photos on my large desktop monitor). <S> This is true for font size as well. <S> What's gorgeous and perfect on your setup is impossible to read on someone else's. <A> Depends on your audience. <S> First, decide how much quality do you want to offer to your visitors (in terms of image quality/details). <S> Second, if you use google analytics, you can make a list of: for desktop users, you can get an idea what is the most common screen resolution ; for the mobile, almost the same (but this is a little bit complicated, keeping in mind the device dpi ); <S> Third, you can always make responsive layouts with CSS media-queries, and of course, load different resources based on the medium the user comes from (e.g. you can load smaller images for users that come from mobile devices); <S> The main idea is to serve different content, based on the user device . <S> And, of course, optimize every image to a quality level that you want to offer. <S> If you want to spend more money on technology, you can also consider serving your content from a CDN (Content Delivery Network). <A> A quick and easy reply would be to save your photos for with a 60% quality. <S> You can do this in Photoshop. <S> I would suggest photos should be no wider than 600 pixels if possible. <S> For most media, the smartphone is the traffic channel. <S> Smartphones have an approx 320-pixel wide screen. <S> Also, think of your pictures like banners. <S> They should engage the reader but still not be as big as no one can find the article which continues below.

Any online image can be scaled to 100% of the width of the webpage, that means it will always fill the available width, regardless of the actual pixel size. In general it's better to use relative sizes and not absolute ones. It depends on the kind of information in the photo, your website design, and the user device which varies by country I use the "medium" size in Wordpress, which is 500 px width and height proportional as required by the image.

As a new poet, where can I find help from a professional to judge my work? I often write short poems and quotes here: https://www.mirakee.com/atd , but I really want to hear from someone professional to give their valuable feedback on my work, so that I know where exactly I stand in the world of poets and poetry and improve myself at the same time. How can I connect with someone like that? <Q> Go to a local university and speak with a writer in residence or a professor who is well-respected. <S> Take creative writing courses and listen to the feedback. <S> Poetry is such an intensely personal and universal form that you must just keep writing. <S> Listen to others, but heed your own instincts too. <S> Write to develop your voice and eventually you will break out of your juvenilia and into your mature works. <S> Read the great poets - see what they did and learn from them. <S> Immerse yourself in their works. <S> Understand that poetry is not something one usually writes for profit, but for pleasure and the absolute soul-driven necessity of getting those brilliant images down on paper. <S> Learn the constraints of your chosen form and discover the freedom within them. <S> Study the rules so that you will know when you can ignore one. <A> There are many places to get good feedback for your work. <S> You said you wanted a professional to look over your work and in that case, if you plan on publishing, I would suggest hiring an editor. <S> But you can go to a community of good writers such as silver pen writers or scribophile . <S> However, I would like to point out that you also need to get feedback from normal people, as they are the ones who will one day be reading your work. <S> wattpad is a great community for this. <S> Who knows maybe I'll read it if it's on there :) <S> For more communities here is a link to an article I believe will help: https://nybookeditors.com/2015/11/11-top-writing-communities-you-should-join-and-why/ <S> Hope <S> this is helpful :) <A> Poetry is a tough art to critique , because it's extremely personal, making it very subjective. <S> In particular, given the modern forms tend to be rule-breaking, it can also be hard to judge, even on a technical level. <S> It's also not a commercially remunerative artform, so even the feedback of the market doesn't tell you much. <S> With all that in mind, your best bet for feedback is a local group of people passionate about poetry . <S> Most communities have these, if you look hard enough for them. <S> (It is possible that you might be able to reach out personally to some poet who might be willing to offer advice, or even mentor you, but going through a poetry group <S> is probably a more reliable route to that than a cold call or email.) <S> Keep in mind that different poetry groups (and different poets) may have their own styles and preferences . <S> If your poetry isn't a good match with the group you've selected, they may not appreciate it for reasons that have little to do with quality. <A> Step one is to get feedback that you're basically on the right track. <S> A lot of people don't feel ready to show their poems to anyone (maybe outside of close friends or family) and need some encouragement first. <S> You're past this step. <S> Step two is a professional editor or reader. <S> Other answers have covered this in detail. <S> So I'm going to give you some intermediate steps. <S> Ones that give you direct feedback from consumers of your poetry. <S> Go to open mike nights for poetry (I'd avoid mixed open night unless you're sure it's one where people stick around and listen to the poetry) and see what sort of reaction you get. <S> Audience reactions during and immediately after your reading and also reactions from people who might come up to you afterwards. <S> Submit your poetry to a few magazines (low level, not top board quite yet) or contests. <S> My local county fair includes poetry categories with the arts submissions; yours might too.

Poetry is intrinsically an oral art, so participating in live readings will help you improve as a poet anyway, but you'll also get feedback both from your audience and your peers. Join a writers group - but remember, being told that your work is far from perfect is the point.

How do we spread a story across several different media without alienating our readers? I thought about spreading a story across a video game, comic book and novel, but I am not sure if doing this will alienate my readers, because I don't believe people want to spend a ton of money to experience the whole story, so how do you manage to do this without alienating your readers? Is there some kind of guideline or rule for this? <Q> Make each medium a complete story in it's own right <S> This can be done, though it is rarely done well. <S> The most important part is to make each part of the story a complete story on it's own. <S> Readers don't want to build up to a climatic moment only to be told "now go play this game to find out what happens." <S> You can't expect a reader to have seen/player/read everything in the other mediums. <S> It must be possible for someone who only wants to read the books to read them and not feel like they are missing something. <S> Dedicated fans of your story will seek it out in any form, but less dedicated will only stick to their preferred medium. <S> Each component can compliment the others but shouldn't change them. <S> The events of your video-game story can impact the book but shouldn't be central to it. <A> What @linksassin says is a good approach, but it's not necessarily the only approach. <S> Sometimes, one medium is the "main story", while the others are "supplementary material" . <S> This is the approach taken by Bioware, and several other strong videogame companies: the main story is in the games, while comics and books serve as tie-ins. <S> They are not necessary for the understanding of the games, they get Easter-egg mention in the main games. <S> But they do not stand on their own either. <S> If you wish, they serve as "merchandise" for the games, and keep interest up while the next game is in development. <S> With other games, most of the story is in the books, while the games focus solely on play. <S> The story is a nice extra, but it is not necessary for gameplay. <S> Nonetheless, the game is still the main product, while the stories are "merchandise" for game fans. <S> On the other hand, the Harry Potter videogames rely on familiarity with the books or the films, while the Star Trek books and videogames rely on the TV series. <S> In all those examples, the story has achieved sufficient popularity in its primary medium, that it can rely on part of a strong fanbase to branch into other media as well, generating more profit. <A> Producing a compelling artistic work which tells a story and engages customers (novel readers, comic book readers, or gamers) is hard. <S> Only a subset of people are receptive to your story, and only a subset of that subset participate in the media you choose. <S> If you try to market only to those people who are read novels and comic books, and who are gamers, you have reduced your base to nearly nothing. <S> Can it be done? <S> Of course. <S> Brilliant creativity can untangle any puzzle. <S> The problem will be selling the idea simultaneously to a novel publisher, comic book publisher, and a game studio with a strong enough pitch and business plan that each will take a risk not only on you but also on the other partners. <S> It is hard. <S> But, if you succeed you will have defined a new business model. <S> You may lead to the partners to merge into a vast multi-media empire. <S> You are more likely to succeed by a compelling story in one of these forms. <S> With a base of people captured by the story, it would be easier (not easy, just easier) to extend the story into other media. <S> You have the success of one media to help pitch the idea to the publishers of other media. <S> It is a mistake to suppose that I represent the market, so enjoy watching me make that mistake here. <S> I read. <S> I read comics. <S> I play games. <S> I would never begin a story knowing that I must do all three to reach the conclusion. <S> If I happened upon one and, having invested the time, reached the end only to be teased, I would reject your scheme and warn anyone who would listen. <S> I would find your scheme to be a buggy conceit rather than an intriguing feature. <S> I would write a scalding review on Amazon. <S> Once you do, you must solve the distribution problem. <S> Is it sold in book stores, comic shops, or video game franchises? <S> You may be left with only Amazon. <S> Make it all be digital downloads to keep down your production cost. <S> Assuming a digital platform, make the crosslinks be transparent. <S> Seamlessly switch between the three story-telling modes. <S> That could be real fun.

It may be a good idea to decide on a core medium for the main story and then use other formats to add lore or side plots that aren't required to enjoy the main arc. You could bundle all three forms into a single package with a single price.

Are paired adjectives bad style? I have the habit of using paired adjectives in my writing: The noise from the engine lulled her with its slow and monotonous rythim ... ... the lights on the ceiling filled the room in a soft and warm hue ... ... his skin was smooth and thin , like paper ... The examples may be not 100% accurate since I don't usually write in english, but let's pretend. Now, sometimes even single adjectives are frowned upon ( What's with all the hate on adjectives and adverbs? ) - so by logic paired adjectives shouldn't be any better. I remember reading reviews criticizing this very aspect in published novels, but I never understood if there are solid reasons to back up this opinion. So, are paired adjectives bad style - and if so, why? Addendum: I'm specifically asking about novels and fiction. Related question, in technical-writing : How do I get rid of the tic of paired adjectives, predicates, etc.? <Q> The double adjectives might be creating a sentence rhythm that feels strong while you write because it seems to "double bounce" in a smooth way – in this case it's not a fast bounce that picks up speed, it is a slow bounce that causes the pace of reading to become deliberate, like when you take a deep breath and let it out. <S> " <S> One and two…, ahhhh" <S> I'm going to start a writing war and say ADJECTIVES ARE GOOD (in general), but what might be catching your critical eye is that you notice it keeps happening, and maybe the 2 adjectives are not really as strong as a well-chosen single word, or maybe the double-bounce slow pace doesn't match the tone you are trying to achieve for the scene. <S> It's ok <S> , that's what re-writing is for. <S> The first draft will end up having these language rhythms and figures of speech that come out of habit and familiarity. <S> Now that you have recognized your pattern, you can decide how to deal with it. <S> It works in the context of slowing down, of slow breathing, of a character reassuring herself that everything is fine. <S> Obviously you will want to break that pattern or avoid it when everything is not fine. <S> You could even attach the quirk to one character who speaks in these rhythmic patterns as a way to hypnotize or reassure, and then later when you break the pattern we know they are not ok. <A> But repeating adjectives that have almost the same or similar meaning (e.g. slow and monotonous, soft and warm, thin and frail) would be considered a bad style, as it would be counted as irrelevant explanation and waste of words, and would definitely bore the reader. <S> But pairing adjectives like smooth and thin, etc is fine as they both describe completely different properties of the paper and one of them can not replace the other. <A> Stately, plump Buck Mulligan ... <S> This is one of the more famous opening lines, from one of the most renowned masters of the form. <S> Ulysses <S> If Joyce can use these two paired adjectives to begin setting the scene so well, this @Liquid is surely an example of a pluterperfectly recommendable style. <A> As in so many instances with English, it all depends. <S> The practice is most often abused by overuse. <S> If all of your adjectives are double, this will be noticeable, and this can be either good or bad. <S> Most English speakers don't use double adjectives most of the time. <S> If you do use exclusively (or even predominantly) <S> double adjectives, this will ordinarily be seen as peculiar and distracting. <S> You can use this, however, if a particular character always does it, and it will establish the character as distinct. <S> Probably a bit annoying or weird, but distinct. <S> TL;DR - You can do it in moderation. <S> Grammatically it's correct, but stylistically it's dangerous, particularly if you do it a lot. <S> Unless you make it work for you. <S> As a writer who does not normally write in English, don't push your luck. <S> Moderation in all things. <A> I think I might choose a comma, rather than a conjunction, in such a case, e.g.: "The slow, monotonous rhythm" <S> but I don't think it's actually wrong to use a conjunction. <A> I would strive for variety in your writing, so <S> the fact that you've already noticed a pattern means you need to be careful. <S> I like where @wetcircuit was going with their answer, but want to expound just a little more. <S> Number of words used to describe something: 3 words: Good rhythm. <S> Readers love groups of three. <S> She was the queen's daughter, no doubt: dark, beautiful, deadly. <S> 2 words: Good at elaborating or showing contrast. <S> Her bright, fancy dress hid a cold and sinister heart. <S> 1 word: Sometimes gives the most impact. <S> The grin on her face could only mean one thing. <S> Trouble. <S> Choose the right number of adjectives for your sentence, recognizing that these are flexible and will depend on context and how recently you used that same technique.

Overuse of that single technique - even if you choose the perfect pair every time - will turn you into a one-trick pony. If the double adjective helps you get through the first draft, and you change it on the re-write, that's a normal part of writing. As a reader, I think that adjectives are helpful in making a better image of what the writer is trying to say.

What should the omniscient narrator call a character? Let there be a character. Let the character's name be, for example, Alexander. Now, Alexander's parents call him 'Sasha'. His friends call him 'Xander'. His girlfriend calls him 'Alex'. In formal circumstances, he's 'Alexander, son of Philipp'. To himself, he is all of those - they are, after all, variations on a theme. What should the omniscient narrator call him? That is, if the omniscient narrator sits on the parents' shoulder, Alexander is called 'Sasha'. If the omniscient narrator sits on the girlfriend's shoulder, Alexander is called 'Alex'. But what if the narrator is sitting on Alexander's shoulder, or on no shoulder at all? <Q> I have a character named Alexander and the name form he thinks of himself as at any one time reflects his mood and the relationship of those around him. <S> To his sister, he is Alex or Xander, rarely Xan - though when angry she calls him Alexander Nicolaus. <S> When he is with her, he thinks of himself as Alexander or Alex and is called such by me. <S> When he is with a lifelong friend, he sometimes becomes Xan. <S> When he is thinking professionally and becomes more formal, he refers to himself by his surname. <S> Use of the various forms will inform the reader both of the depth of the relationship and his attitude at the moment. <S> I trust them not to be bewildered and think he is really five people. <S> I have situations where he starts out with his surname but starts to relax and thinks of himself as Alexander. <S> A little later he considers himself Alex and is getting rather mellow. <S> A friend told me I had to change his name because there is already a famous character named Alex. <S> I told this friend it is a relatively common name and mine won’t be mistaken for him, though if he could think of a name that suited him as well and has the flexibility of Alexander - go for it. <S> My omniscient narrator changes the form of his name to suit the situation. <S> It works. <A> , I would guess that is where the "Sasha" comes from. <S> However, were I writing, the narrator would use "Alex", for brevity in reading and being slightly less intimate than "Sasha". <S> I feel that distance is important: I don't feel like a narrator should present like his friend , to me ruling out "Sasha" and "Xander", but then again the narrator will be talking about him a great deal, and would likely resort to a shortened version of his full first name; hence "Alex" instead of "Alexander" (or something even longer and more formal). <A> Who is the narrator? <S> It is not important that the readers know, but it is important that you, the writer, knows. <S> If Alexander is also the narrator he really should use "I". <S> Others have suggested that he use the third person and a name that reflect the context, but I disagree with that. <S> If I read a book like that I would seriously start questioning "Who is narrating this anyway?" <S> It would disrupt the flow. <S> For me, at least. <S> Others may have other experiences. <S> This is in part because I read English and Norwegian and neither language has a tradition for speaking of yourself like that. <S> Other languages have other traditions. <S> Now, if you have another character in mind as narrator, you need to find out what their relationship is. <S> They would probably be consistent about it. <A> (You picked a great example name; and it makes me wonder if all writers know an Alexander who likes to be called Sasha) <S> I have a friend named Alexander, who I call Sasha and his answer <S> has always been "it depends on who I'm talking to. <S> " If I were to write a book about him <S> and I were me, the narrator; I'd call him Sasha because that's who he is to me. <S> If most people in the book are going to call him Alex, I'm going to let them call him Alex. <S> I'm going to use both names, it might be worth having Alex say at to someone new he is meeting, "Oh, they call me Alex, but my friends and family call me Sasha," which is how he explained it to me after I knew him by the name Sasha for about a year <S> and he finally introduce me to someone who knew him as Alex. <S> This can be confusing for readers if they aren't familiar with such names, so it's important to stick to one for a bit (unless you need to vary early) and then explain it quickly or make it clear that Sasha is a nickname and this is just accepted. <S> Prose can get away from you and be confusing anyways, so try something heavy and go lighter if your alpha/beta readers complain. <A> I honestly think that having the name 'Alex' be the way the omniscient narrator refers to him would simplify things. <S> I have never read something where a character was referred to by so many different names -even by the narrator- <S> so I can't respond if this would throw me off or not. <S> The name Alex, however, is easily connected to all forms of the name Alexander (with the exception of Sasha, perhaps) and is short enough to be read in a nice flow with the rest of the text so the narrator can get the reader to the action. <S> The idea of having the narrator use each of the different forms of his name depending on how the character identifies himself at the time is interesting, but I'm not sure what that would do to the flow. <S> If it is a part of the main plot/action then calling attention to it would make sense, and give the reader a payoff in the end. <S> If it isn't then they will have taken the extra time to remind themselves what character the narrator is talking about (it does take a couple extra seconds to orient the thought process when the reference keeps changing) has been wasted.

I would think Alexander would think of himself with the name he first learned and responded to as a child; likely this was what his mother called him on a daily basis It depends on whether or not how he identifies himself is a big part of the plot.

End-of-line hyphenation - how should it be used? End-of-line hyphenation is the process of breaking words between lines to create more consistency across a text block. ( source ) A long word is broken across a line-break by means of a hyphen. It helps justify a text, along letter spacing and kerning. A word processors can do this automatically, if one so desires. In Russian and French printed literature, hyphenation is very common. In Russian in particular, it is not uncommon to see even a four-letter word broken in twain. In English, I have never seen hyphenation in literary texts at all. I have sometimes seen it in academic articles, breaking uncommonly long words like 'deoxyribonucleic'. Are there commonly used standards for end-of-line hyphenation in English? Any reasons for me to use or not to use hyphenation in my manuscript? Why is it that hyphenation is very rarely used in English literary texts? <Q> I don't know if this is an answer, but answers shouldn't be in comments, so I'll take a gamble. <S> In college, I took as a humanity "Mideval English Literature." <S> Apparently, mid- dle and old English followed this practice to the extreme and with poor judgem- <S> ent even in cases when it wasn't used to the extreme. <S> I seem to recall our pro- <S> fessor commented that English literature drastically cut back on its use at so- <S> me point in reaction to the horrors that had once been committed, back in the day. <S> There are still quite a few works that use hyphenation, but only very sparsely. <S> But when a book of 110,000 words hyphenates three words, you tend to not notice that it did it at all. <A> The first step is to figure out if you actually need to use end-of-line hyphenation (EoLH). <S> Depending on what you're writing, you may not need to use it at all. <S> Internet publications, for example, don't tend to use it, even when the lines are short. <S> Here's part of an online article (which is especially narrow as it is used next to a photo) as it appears on my screen: Rhett Nicks, director of the animal shelter, told NBC- affiliate WCMH-TV that there is a chance the dogs, named Polar and Bear, may be put down due to the severity of the child's injury. <S> The page is responsive, which means where the line ends changes on screens of different widths. <S> There are several ways you can have EoLH on a webpage, such as shy hyphens , but usually it's not worth it. <S> In addition, sometimes typesetting is not your job. <S> If you're submitting your writing to someone else (such as a journal) check to see what their policy is. <S> Don't do work that you don't need to do! <S> (Even if someone else does the hyphening, you will likely want to proofread to make sure it looks good.) <S> Otherwise, most writing software will have an option for EoLH, which can help you get started. <S> You definitely want to proofread automatically generated hyphenation. <S> For example, one style guide , largely (or entirely) based off the Chicago Manual of Style, says the following: <S> In general, follow the intraword dots in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary . <S> Don't end more than two lines in a row with EoLHs. <S> The hyphenated word should have two or more letters at the end of the line and three or more at the start of the next one. <S> Some words, like "par·​tic·​i·​pate" have a syllable in the middle that is just a vowel; it should go before the hyphen (e.g. "partici- <S> <newline> ​pate"). <S> Divide words at natural breaks, such as between the suffix and the rest of the word or between halves of a compound word Avoid hyphenating proper nouns. <S> Lastly, if following the above results in something ugly or confusing, modify it so that it's not either of those. <A> If you're typing in modern era, most word processors don't require hypentaion at the end of the line as they tend to move a whole word to the new line if it's going to overrun. <S> This was more common in typewriters and newspapers because the former was not dynamic and the latter has space constraints. <S> Even then, in the case with limiting the space smaller than the default, the text will still be refitted to avoid this in word processors. <S> And if you're writing on a typewriter, why do you hate yourself? <S> English does use hyphenated words and compound words (improving on it's Germanic roots, which has mad love for compund words... <S> the more words compounded the better). <S> In both cases, they are considered a single word. <S> Words such as the spelt version of numbers greater than 20 and less than 100 will be hyphenated words (21 is properly spelt twenty-one) and is considered one word for the purposes of new lines in a word possessor as is Firetruck. <S> If you must hyphenate at the end of the line, you should break hyphenated words on the hyphen point and compund words between the two componant words (Thus "Twenty- <S> /n <S> * one" and "Fire- /n* truck"). <S> But again, computers have rendered this mostly dead. <S> /n is basically a representative of the character for line break in coding (or how a word processor's code handles the event of an Enter Key press).

It seems to mostly be a thing to use to prevent full justifi- cation from making a line especially spaced out due to a long word being wrapped close to its end. Your style guide will tell you how to hyphenate (if you don't have one or it's not specified, you can follow a style guide that does have such instructions).

What would you expect from travel story? I want to write travel story novel. My plan is to have 4 characters (2 guys and 2 girls), which decided to visit 4 European cities (probably I will choose Frankfurt - Germany, Reykjavík - Iceland, Uzhhorod - Ukraine and fourth must be invented). I want to show culture and details of not very well known cities (that is why I did not chose London, Paris etc.) and in every location highlight one of four heroes. All 4 heroes would be special, but I am aware that novel can turn to something like documentary film (which is not bad, but probably the reader would excpect some action, which is missing in my idea for now). What would you force to read such novel to the end? <Q> I'm not sure what a travel story is supposed to mean. <S> A story has a problem for the MCs to solve, an answer to find, something to discover. <S> Most of my stories involve travel and discovering new things. <S> If Frodo, in Lord of the Rings, did not have to travel to all kinds of new and interesting places, there wouldn't be a book! <S> Just tourists going on a trip is generally not that interesting. <S> They need a mission, some underlying reason to go to these cities and look around. <S> They are trying to find something. <S> Solve a mystery. <S> Find out what happened to somebody they know. <S> Find out what happened 25 years ago. <S> Or maybe they are trying to solve a puzzle that is a hundred years old: They found a new clue, and there may be a treasure at the end. <S> Also, although setting can be excellent, in general for a story what we are interested in is the MCs. <S> What they think, how they feel, their relationships with each other (or others) and how those relationships are changing, or how their lives are changing. <S> If they are new adults, this may be the last real trip they can take together, they have just graduated college and will soon disperse: <S> The military, two jobs, and graduate school. <S> If they are looking for something, somebody can oppose them; you have a villain. <S> But you don't have to have a villain, the circumstances they are in can be the villain. <S> They get lost. <S> They get robbed. <S> One of them is in love with another, and this trip is the last chance to do anything about it. <S> The setting is always the background. <S> It can be most of the story, like Lord of the Rings, and it can seem to dominate the writing, it can be very interesting, but it is the background. <S> You need a story , a struggle, a mission, to drive the characters through the setting, so you can show it to the reader. <A> Being in another country, confronted with new cultures and ways of thinking, may be a good starting point for characters that are ingenuous, had lived in their comfort zone for a long time, and have to compose with people they would have never met in their previous lives. <S> Not all characters may learn something, or they may learn and grow, or learn and toughen themselves, not necessarily in a good way. <S> The example I would give for such a story is L'Auberge Espagnole , a french movie about an exchange student who went living in Spain for a year because he is unsure of what he wants to do later in his life, meeting others students from all across Europe. <S> Coming there with stereotypes in mind, eventually, he will learn to live, love and what kind of person he wants to be. <S> Speaking of the locations you picked, Reykjavik is a beautiful town and Iceland a definitely great place for growing characters: I went trekking in Iceland years ago, and I definitely learnt alot, from setting up a tent to knowing more deeply the people I went with, earning and losing friendships, and discovering marvelous landscapes that will stay forever in my memories. <A> Well its a travel story. <S> You can show it as adventurous voyage. <S> You should watch "Zindagi na milegi dobara". <S> you'll surely get some best ideas. <S> Other than that you can read different blogs of the places you are choosing for the story. <S> By reading different blogs about same place, you'll see a place with different perspectives and by that you'll get different ideas to add in your story.

I am not sure of what you expect from a travel story, but after what you described I would think of a coming of age story: characters are naive and learn valuable life lessons throughout their adventures.

What to call a nameless character in a 3rd person narrative? How do I present a nameless character in a 3rd person narrative who has never known his parents? And has never had extended human interaction with anyone long enough to even be called “Boy” or “Child.” What would the narrator call such a character (until he has a name)? Can anyone provide examples? The only thing I’ve thought up is “Nameless Boy” and other simple titles along those lines. <Q> More than one author has struggled with the same problem before. <S> The most famous example of what you're trying to do, and one <S> you're no doubt familiar with, is Fantine , from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables . ' <S> Fantine' literally means 'little girl'. <S> It has the 'infant' root + a feminine diminutive suffix. <S> Like your character, Fantine grew up in the streets. <S> She was called 'little girl' by people, so that became her name. <S> This name can be relatively pleasant (e.g. Fantine) or relatively unpleasant (e.g. Shoo), as you see fit. <A> I would agree with Bella Swan - you can just call him 'the boy' unless there are other characters present who would fit that description. <S> The Road manages to get away with this beautifully for an entire novel. <S> Granted, there are only really two characters throughout most of the book, but it could be done with a bit more effort in another setting. <S> I would recommend starting by using descriptors the first several times you speak of him, based upon how you first mentioned him. <S> Call him "the brown-haired boy", "the small boy", "the boy in the corner", etc. <S> so that the reader is reminded who you are speaking about. <S> Once the reader understands that the boy is sticking around for at least a little while, you can transition to a more consistent and shorter tag, like "the boy". <S> Just my opinion; I am not an expert by any means. <A> I find it difficult to keep referring to the "homeless street kid" as nameless if they have a role longer than a few paragraphs, as the "homeless street kid. <S> " Though you can throw in future references later on, as, "I had a sudden remembrance of that 'homeless street kid' back in London. <S> He'd been trying to tell me..." <S> You can give them a simple name without much effort. <S> The local butcher (another nameless character) yells at the "homeless street kid," "Tad, get out of here! <S> No handouts until after hours. <S> " Then your kid has a name, and he could even look embarrassed saying, "I like tadpoles, so people call me Tad." <S> Still, there are plenty of nameless characters in fiction. <S> The jail guard brought me my supper of bread and water. <S> No name required. <S> The dancers at the banquet mingled with the guests. <S> No names required. <A> "The one no one would talk to paused to watch with envy as the prettiest of the scullery maids flirted with Edvard, the doorkeep. <S> With his unragged clothes and well-trimmed hair, Edvard was barely like a slave at all. <S> Of course people were pleasant to Edvard. <S> The one no one would talk to then hurried on, dragging the bucket from all the empty chamber pots, careful not to spill. <S> There were beatings if he spilled, or if he took to long." <S> To expand on Galastel's point, when you don't have a name, the character will have some other way of identifying. <S> That way of identifying will be an expression of how the character is referred to by others, or simply of his own self-concept. <S> How a character approaches the concept of self (which can be echoed in omniscient narration) is an opportunity to explore and expose that character's inner life. <A> The important word here is "the." <S> All of us use "the" to reference people whose names we don't know. <S> We'd never say "the nameless person." <S> Instead, we talk about "the waiter" or "the bus driver" or "the woman with the red skirt" or "the kid doing cartwheels. <S> " <S> When we do this, we assume the person has a name, just not one we know. <S> But think about how we refer to animals. <S> Many animals have names. <S> Animals who are commonly pets usually have names but often don't (feral cats, for instance). <S> Or they might have a name we'll never know (an abandoned dog). <S> Even wild animals often have names. <S> It can be a traditional name, or a research one, like P-22. <S> We can refer to animals without using names and there is no difference between doing this with an animal that actually has a name vs one who doesn't. <S> "The calico with the tipped ear," "the mare with the teenaged rider," "the lobster over there missing a claw."

The conclusion seems to be, whatever your character is called in the brief interactions that he has with people - that becomes his name. There is a Russian children's story about a dog named 'Shoo' - the dog has been shooed so many times, that by the time it was adopted, it thought 'Shoo' was it's name.

How can we incorporate poems in a novel? I am not sure if this is true, but I heard there were short poems in the beginning of each chapter in Lord of the Rings. Although, this could be done fairly easily, I am wondering if there are any other way to incorporate poems in a novel. I am thinking there are many instances of it in the rich history of literature, but because I haven't read a lot of books I am curious to know if there are ways of enriching a novel with poems that I am not aware of. <Q> You have been misinformed: The Lord of the Rings doesn't have short poems at the start of each chapter. <S> Characters may sing on varied occasions: there are walking songs and bathing songs, there are elegies for the dead and lays sung to tell a tale. <S> Verse may be recited, etc. <S> Whenever the narrator says a character sings, or recites poetry, or encounters verse in some other form, the verse is right there. <S> It's as simple as that <S> - the verse is as much a part of the narrative as any bit of dialogue. <S> Such use of poetry is quite common in literature, if the author can write poetry. <S> @Rasdashan mentions <S> Dr. Zhivago <S> in a comment. <S> Boris Pasternak uses a different approach: while the main character is a poet, only snippets of verse appear within the narration. <S> Instead, a collection of verse "written by the character" is appended to the book. <S> That approach is more meta, keeping up the pretence that the character is a real person. <S> And of course there is the separate form of writing a novel entirely in verse. <S> Such were the ancient sagas, such as Beowulf and the Iliad , medieval works such as El Cantar de Mio Cid and The Song of Roland , and more modern novels in verse, such as Alexander Pushkin's Yevgeniy Onegin . <A> There are a number of short to moderate verses in The Lord of the Rings <S> They do not serve as chapter headings, nor do the appear regularly in each chapter. <S> They are generally recited or sung by one or another character, although in at least one case the narrator tells us that a verse was made years later to describe and commemorate an event, and gives us the verse. <S> In another case the narrator describes an epitaph that was later added to a gravesite, after the scene where the death occurs ( Faithful servant / yet master's bane / Lightfoot's foal / swift Snowmane for Theoden's horse). <S> Verses are recited or sung by Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Frodo, Bilbo, and Sam, among others. <S> That is one way to do it. <S> It all depends on the narrative situation, and the effect desired. <S> Any use of verse takes some care. <S> If the tone and style do not fit, or the composition seems clunky, it will detract rather than add. <S> I recall that in Delany's Babel-17 the main character is a poet, and a number of her verses are quoted. <S> But then Delaney was at that time married to the noted formalist poet Marilyn Hacker, and i rather suspect that she had a hand in those verses. <A> There are answers before mine; so I will only add that one other use of a poem or rhyming verse (which I did not see in those answers) is as a clue to some mystery. <S> This can represent a riddle directly, or it is a riddle disguised as poem, like a love poem or an elegy on a gravestone. <S> I cannot recall exactly, but I believe Dan Brown has used this device in his religious mysteries. <A> Two novels that do this very well are The Translator , by John Crowley, and Possession , by A.S. Byatt. <S> The Translator is about a young American poet who translates the work of a great Russian poet who is a visiting professor at the college she is attending. <S> I believe I read somewhere that John Crowley wanted to write a novel about a great poet, but didn't think he could write great poetry himself. <S> So the great poetry is in Russian, but all we see is a fairly literal free-verse translation into English. <S> The young American poet becomes a celebrated poet herself after graduating from college, but mostly we see her earlier works. <S> In Possession , Byatt has a present-day plot and a Victorian plot. <S> The Victorian plot is about two poets, so she had to write poetry for it—and to it had to be fairly good poetry to maintain the reader's suspension of disbelief. <S> Luckily, she was a good enough poet to pull it off.

I have seen works that use verse as chapter epigraphs, and works where "ancient" verse is quoted by the narrator. The Lord of the Rings has poems of various length (up to several pages long), when characters sing, recite poems, or find them written somewhere.

How to document and cite website downtime properly? I couldn't find anything on this one, so maybe someone has a good idea on what would be considered good practice in a scholarly context. Background For a semester project, I have to observe an online newspaper and summarize their weekly topics.Each week I have to submit a short note containing my findings and analysis, and of course quote the source properly according to the Chicago style. However, the website was down for a day or so and I would like to have that documented. But how to document and cite absence? <Q> I would follow the convention in the natural sciences to explain the extent and cause of missing data in the method section where data collection is described. <S> E.g.: "Data was collected by visiting www.thesite.com at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day from August 2nd to 8th. <S> The website was down and no data could be collected on August 4th. <S> " <S> You don't need proof in the form of screenshots or server logs. <S> Missing data is common in data sciences, e.g. when participants forget to fill in a form or one of your lab rats dies. <S> That's the normal course of science, and all you have to do is describe your data collection in sufficient detail to make replication of your experiment possible. <A> As a note, which is what they were invented for. <S> So "Week 7: Mar 11-17 [1] <S> The following headlines were gathered: blah blah blah <S> And in the footnote: [1] The site was inaccessible Mar 12, thus no data is shown for that date. <S> You can do the same for any other time missing, in hours if needed, or specify the times if you wish. <S> The above is just a formatting example. <A> Did you take screenshots of it being down? <S> Does the site have an errors log? <S> Is there a site you checked those days to make sure it wasn't just you? <S> ( https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ and https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ are a few). <S> If the site is consistently archived on Archive.org's Wayback Machine, if you can show that on days surrounding it, there is an image of the site, but on the down-day, it shows just a (whatever) error, then that's another piece of evidence. <S> Whatever you use, then just cite it like any other website. <S> If you did screenshots as evidence, then I would include those as an appendix. <S> (source - I used to teach Technical Writing at a local university)

As a former university professor at one university, and now a full time research scientist at another, I would just add a footnote for any weeks in which the site was down.

How to open a serious speech? I need to speak at the unveiling of a memorial plaque ( this one , incidentally). I have an idea of what I want to say, and how I want to arrange it. My struggle is with the opening. I have spoken in public before - in academic settings, on fantasy/sci-fi conventions. In all those circumstances, my go-to strategy has been (introduce myself, then) "start by saying something funny". When I've got everybody laughing, I've got everybody engaged, and it helps me get over the first moments of petrifying stage-fright. This approach isn't going to work here: the holocaust is not funny. And the people who are going to be in attendance are not the friendly geeks of sci-fi conventions, which doesn't help the stage-fright one bit. How do I open this kind of speech? How do I start strong, and engage the audience at once? I can't afford to stand there and blabber. <Q> I'd expect it to be tragic, obviously, but the point of the memorial is to remember what was taken from so many. <S> To prevent that from being a faceless crowd, we do what writers do: <S> Focus on an individual. <S> Photojournalists do the same: I'll never forget this photo . <S> (NSFW, naked napalm girl). <S> One person representing a horror that befell thousands. <S> If you can make it a personal connection, that may be good, but it doesn't have to be. <S> There is a reason for this memorial, and it comes down to individuals. <S> Find a story of contrast, that represents the love and kindness that was destroyed by hatred and cruelty. <A> When I taught Presentations in Tech Writing, one of my biggest tools was "ROPES" - review/rapport, overview/objective, present, exercise, summary. <S> In more social settings, you're using the comedy opening to establish rapport with the audience. <S> Here, you want to instead connect with them by explaining your connection to the memorialized people and to those attending. <S> It doesn't need to be fancy. <S> Overview/Objective - this is where you can directly state the "thesis statement" - why this memorial is here. <S> Perhaps also point out the distinctness - what makes this group of memorialized people significant/different from the ones represented in existing memorials. <S> Present - this is the "body" of the talk - any specific details you want to point out, anything about the creation of the memorial, any of those elements. <S> Exercise - in a strictly educational/informative setting, you'd alternate a Point Presented and an Exercise or Interaction. <S> For a memorial, you may want to give a moment now and then asking the audience to reflect - maybe on what they'd say to the deceased, maybe on how they would represent these concepts in their own designs. <S> No need for you to fill all the time. <S> Allow some silences. <S> (Feel free to also remind people of any other interactions - if there's a guestbook to sign, or if others can speak if they want to.) <S> Summary - this is just a quick restatement of any key things you want people to walk away with -- people tend to remember the starts & ends of things. <S> I hope this structuring tool is useful. <A> Begin with an aspect you will most miss of the person(s), then continue on the relationship of that person with family and friend who survived. <S> Keep the common theme around that one most important aspect, adding only few small details. <S> Keep it simple.

I would begin with a story, about somebody you are memorializing.

What challenges are there in writing a fantasy cookbook? I ask mostly out of curiosity. Obviously, a proper cookbook would involve real ingredients and not fantasy creatures. There's such a cookbook for Skyrim and Lord of the Rings. What I am curious about is this: what challenges are there in writing a fantasy cookbook where creatures that don't exist in real life are used as the ingredients? Having trouble following along? In 1998, a Pokemon cookbook was published online. No, it wasn't a cookbook where it shows you how to make the food shown in the show of Pokemon. It was a cookbook where the writer, K.S. Suslick, used Pokemon as the ingredients . Now in my case, I have no interest in making a cookbook involving Pokemon... but what about a cookbook where the recipes are inspired by my own fantasy world? Obviously, in order to make the cookbook be valuable to anyone aside from as a random merch item for my story, I need to include recipes that can be made with real-world items... but what about if I get to a recipe where it calls for 8 ounces of dragon steak (for example)? This is obviously just one example, but what challenges are there for such a cookbook? Assume I'm wanting it to be sellable as its own thing, not attached to a given story, so it's just a cookbook for a fantasy world. <Q> In essence, you've got two elements to balance: the fantasy, and the cooking. <S> So let's look at them separately first. <S> Cooking: <S> The recipes need to work. <S> Recipes that mean nothing can be a fun gimmick on the internet, but if you're selling a cookbook, it should be a cookbook, no matter how it's styled. <S> As @Wetcircuit mentions, people expect recipes to be relatively easy. <S> At least part of your target audience is not people who do a lot of cooking at home, but relative amateurs who would want to have a bit of fun. <S> Teenagers would find such a book particularly appealing (as would children, but they would need supervision in the kitchen anyway). <S> Not all recipes need to be easy, but there needs to be a sufficient number of easy ones for complete amateurs to enjoy. <S> Similar to the point above, final product should not exclude a child's palate. <S> In fact, the "fun" element in your book might encourage children who are picky eaters to try out new things. <S> Fantasy: <S> People are going to buy your book for the fantasy element. <S> You've got to give them enough of that. <S> You can tell the reader about where a dish fits into your fantasy world's culture. <S> You can have the recipe written by a particular character, and in that character's particular tone. <S> You can insert anecdotes about how the recipe was created, or about someone who ate it (within the setting, of course). <S> Be creative! <S> Combining the two: Consider presentation. <S> If you write about dragon steak, suggest one can substitute beef, and from then on <S> it's just a normal steak, you've done nothing. <S> There is a restaurant not far from where I live, called "The Witch and the Milkman". <S> Their mains are slow-cooked meats served in a cauldron. <S> This is an example of presentation fitting the theme. <S> I personally find that lines like "if you can't find dragon, you can substitute beef" throw me out of the fantasy. <S> If you must have substitutions, consider having them in-world: "after dragons in fantasyland went extinct due to an influx of knights, locals started preparing beef according to the following recipe, to approximate the taste." <S> You can stylise not only the presentation, but also the text of the recipe. <S> "Stir three times diosil, then seven times widdershins". <S> However, make sure that the instructions remain clear. <A> First, consider the characteristics of the fantasy element in a world-building sense. <S> Then you have a baseline understanding of what your dragon steak is like. <S> You could do a one to one comparison. <S> Dragon steak is the same as Bison steak. <S> Thick, rich, hearty, earthy and grassy. <S> Or you could decide its characteristics a little more individually. <S> Dragon steak is tough and gamy like old mutton, but it has a natural smokey flavor and is surprisingly lean. <S> Goes well with Worcestershire. <S> Needs slow cooked. <S> Now, You can blurb about this the way a cookbook author might, but even if you don't it's important you know for your own consideration these minutiae. <S> I would say that highlighting the fun ingredients as if they were the star ingredient with a blurb does sound like a funner read and lets you put some of that world-building into the actually print. <S> Then you can construct dishes that contain these elements as well as other more traditional ingredients. <S> If using the one-to-one approach you can even look up some common dishes and swap out ingredients. <S> One of the challenges with this is, even if you carefully construct what each ingredient is to you, it may not come across to the reader. <S> Even with a blurb it might not be clear what Pikachu tastes like or even remotely what texture, shape, color, consistency, aroma. <S> Perhaps for practice try blurbs about actual food as if you were trying to explain those ingredients to people who were unfamiliar with them. <S> Then try looking at how other cookbooks have done so successfully. <S> I have yet to find a good example of a cookbook that speaks about ingredients it assumes the reader not to know <S> but I will keep looking. <S> But as I was searching I stumbled on this little gem of a resource and thought I'd share. <A> Read buyer reviews of similar books example: customer reviews of The Wizard's Cookbook (Amazon) Readers say what they thought of the books' creativity and artwork , and also describe needing to adapt the recipes (various reasons). <S> Most show the buyers initially bought the books as a novelty or gift , then find recipes within they want to try. <S> Many expected the recipes would be easier , implying the recipes were not taken seriously or the expected market was for young people who would not normally cook.

A common issue across the associated books is sourcing the ingredients .

How can I trim my word count and still be proud of what I've written? I am a new writer. My work is focused on real people. I ask a series of questions and go from there. Its all about their personal journeys with health. I like to capture the feeling of what people have gone through, and put it into words. I have no problem telling a great story. The problem I'm running into is word criteria. I have a limited 750-word count. I always go way over (3,000), then I just can't seem to trim and still be proud of what I have written. How do I achieve both? <Q> Sometimes editing to fit a requirement makes you a stronger writer. <S> And sometimes the onerousness of the requirement means you're in the wrong genre. <S> If you said you have a 750 word limit and sometimes you push 1000 words, then we could give you all sorts of advice about how to trim things to make it work. <S> But 3000 to 750? <S> That's not trimming. <S> That's changing your format. <S> My suggestion <S> If that's not possible, then break your stories into parts. <S> If you can't do that, then you will have to focus each story on something far more narrow than you're doing now. <S> For example, instead of documenting someone's journey with diabetes, focus on their diagnosis, or on their dietary changes. <S> You can still be proud of more narrowly focused articles. <S> Which approach you take depends on what options are available to you and the details of who you are writing for (your publisher and your audience). <S> Don't think of it as trimming (which simply isn't possible when you're cutting 3/4 of what you've written). <S> Instead, focus. <S> Narrow the scope and then fill it out from there. <A> The problem is you are asking us how you can erase 75% of your writing. <S> We can't help you. <S> If it was 25%? <S> Sure. <S> 50%? <S> Maybe. <S> 75% isn't possible if you still want it to be the same thing. <S> In this case, I recommend starting from scratch and making an outline that you follow to a Tee. <S> Pick one event in that person's life and write about it. <S> Do not use adjectives or adverbs unless mandatory for accuracy. <S> Do not be afraid of 3-4 word sentences. <S> Try to avoid going over 7 words in a sentence when possible. <S> Always try to find a way to use contractions when possible. <S> (i.e "Michael is going to the store" -> <S> "Michael's going to the store.") <S> (i.e. "Michael's going shopping.") <S> Any elaboration and purple prose can then be sprinkled into your writing after you have finished the draft and seen how many words you still have available. <S> Don't be afraid to be a miser with the words you use. <S> Make a plan and stick to it <S> and you should be fine. <A> Don't cut down, restart from scratch and build up. <S> You've already done the major work. <S> So, write a summary for your 3000 word document. <S> Summarize the 3 most important points that you want someone to get out of it (or even the 1 most important point). <S> Start with a sentence. <S> Then write a paragraph. <S> Then flesh it out more. <S> Repeat that last step as often as necessary to get the word count you want; each time adding more detail. <A> Honestly, some solid advice that applies to everyone is just cut down on any unnecessary adjectives/adverbs if it's a work of fiction. <S> If it's an non-fiction piece, try taking out certain phrases and see if you can replace them with one word that gives off the same basic definition.

If you can shorten your word choice further, do so. There is an art to capturing the feel with only a piece of the story to work with. Focus on making your word usage intentional and as direct as possible. : Find places that accept 3000 (or maybe 2500) word pieces. Try not to simplify: you just can't document a large journey in 750 words.